Enveda | Efficient drug development, naturally

We are thrilled to extend our partnership with Enveda, investing in their Series C, to support their vision of bringing new treatment options for complex diseases. Enveda has made significant progress towards validating its fundamental thesis that natural products with history of prior uses are a rich source of new medicines. In a relatively short period of time, the company has demonstrated an ability to repeatedly and efficiently discover new drug candidates for multiple diseases. We believe this is just the beginning and expect the actual impact of Enveda’s knowledge graph and data models will emerge more clearly as these products progress through clinical trials. If Enveda’s meta-experiment is successful, it would not only expand the sources for new drug discovery but would also be a significant step forward for technology-enabled drug discovery.

Bridging the gap between In Silico, In Vitro and In Vivo

At PI, one pillar of our AI thesis is that large opportunities exist for specialized vertical applications (backed by our investments in investments in Hippocratic AI and EvenUp). At the same time, we believe that there is a gap between claims of AI/ML platforms and actual pipeline progress, particularly in life sciences. While AI/ML models can generate superior starting points, their actual impact on development timelines and cost has been mixed. This stems from the stages where AI/ML models are utilized in the discovery process, the data sets they are built on and the sequential nature of early drug development.

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Enveda stood out even through our early discussions with their unwavering faith in its initial hypothesis and their incredible focus on identifying failures early without sacrificing promising drug candidates. The breadth of Enveda’s current pipeline is the initial proof of the team’s work on building the infrastructure – software and hardware – which now enables the company to move from concept to drug candidate at a much faster pace than industry standards. There are many aspects to this:

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• Generation of proprietary mass spectrometry and bioactivity/bioavailability data for a wide range of compounds

• Development of prediction models, which have gotten significantly better over time

• Supporting brilliant drug hunters who can rely on custom process and hardware for isolation of compounds of interest

• Cultivating a medicinal chemistry team who can get to a viable drug candidate through fewer analogues.

Each of these components have been thoughtfully built and come together to develop a concept into a viable drug candidate in the shortest possible time.

A better and more efficient drug development process

In less than five years, Enveda has created a pipeline of multiple drug candidates with promising early data while building the platform and infrastructure which enables this rapid discovery process. With a scaled platform, we believe that the company is at a stage to further accelerate the discovery process while expanding the use cases for its technology.

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Recently, Enveda achieved a major milestone with its first product entering clinical trials. This is a first of many, with multiple candidates set to begin clinical trials over the next 12 months. We expect the clinical readouts to further validate Enveda’s platform and process. In the long term, the platform’s success should also expand the interest in natural products as a source of new medicines, improving access for patients worldwide. We are incredibly excited to partner with the Viswa Colluru and the Enveda team for this journey!