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The French biotech company WhiteLab Genomics has raised $10 million in funding for an AI platform designed to aid in the discovery and development of genomic therapies.
Founded in Paris in 2019, Y Combinator (YC) graduate WhiteLab Genomics provides gene and cell therapy companies with predictive software simulations to accelerate the design of gene and cell therapies. Gene therapy, for the uninitiated, is a new treatment that involves replacing missing or defective genes in cells to correct genetic disorders, while cell therapy is about changing a cell or set of cells to trigger an effect throughout the body.
Thousands of diseases, including cystic fibrosis, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, stem from errors in an individual’s DNA, and new research into gene and cell therapies may eventually treat such conditions at their source, replacing the need for drugs or surgery.
However, such therapies are typically expensive to develop with no guarantee that they will work. Current methods for developing new gene and cell therapies typically involve a trial-and-error approach, according to WhiteLab Genomics CEO and co-founder David Del Bourgo, whereby scientists formulate a scientific hypothesis and test it in a lab: if it works, it develops to the next phase, but if it does not succeed, they go back to the starting point with another hypothesis. And that’s where WhiteLab Genomics enters the fray, with a computational approach that combines machine learning and deep learning techniques to address multiple scientific hypotheses at once, looking at different genetic variants “to predict the best molecular design for the therapy” based on the goals .
“Gene and cell therapies still suffer from poor efficacy, immunological side effects and very high development costs,” Del Bourgo explained to TechCrunch. “We provide customers with exhaustive predictive models that combine genetics and computational biology to design and select the best candidates to test in the lab.”
WhiteLab Genomics’ founders: CEO David Del Bourogo and Chief Science Officer Julien Cottineau Image credit: WhiteLab Genomics
Show me the data
As with almost all AI models, WhiteLab Genomics uses myriad datasets to train its algorithms, spanning genomic, RNA, oncology and protein repositories, in addition to “an exhaustive set of evidence” such as public scientific and clinical research data.
“We are also collaborating with specialized institutions to enrich the models with additional non-public data,” Del Bourgo added. “We train and validate our algorithms on well-characterized datasets interconnected in our Knowledge Graph Database. These included public databases, proprietary data and datasets from our partners. It predicts biological features from new genetic sequences to build new therapeutic vectors and generates new therapeutic constructs.”
As for the kinds of treatments WhiteLab Genomics is helping to develop, Del Bourgo said the company is currently working on projects including DNA-based therapies for metabolic conditions such as lysosomal diseases, as well as stem cell therapies for blood disorders such as sickle cell disease and immunogenic therapies for the treatment of cancer.
Elsewhere, a number of companies are using AI to help discover drugs, such as BenevolentAI, which has raised significant investment from the VC world, while there’s TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield winner Cellino, which recently raised $80 million to develop cell therapies using of AI. WhiteLab Genomics is similar, but it works with both genes and cell therapy companies.
It’s also worth noting that WhiteLab Genomics represents a growing list of French startups successfully infiltrating the YC ranks. Of the 40 European companies in WhiteLab Genomics’ Winter ’22 cohort, 5 were French, a number that rose to 8 from 34 for the Summer ’22 tranche – the second highest number from across Europe.
With $10 million in the bank from French investor Omnes Capital and biopharmaceutical heavyweight Debiopharm, WhiteLab Genomics is now well-funded to build out its platform and redouble its partnerships with the scientific field, which to date have included notable collaborations with the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm), Genethon Laboratories, among other pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
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