CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Relay Therapeutics, a new breed of company at the intersection of computation and biotechnology, today announced the successful completion of a $400 million Series C financing.
Relay Therapeutics combines unprecedented computational power with leading-edge experimental approaches across the fields of structural biology, biophysics, chemistry and biology. The integration of these disparate disciplines, tools and cultures enables Relay Therapeutics to overcome challenges that prior attempts have failed to solve and to design therapies against validated but previously intractable targets. Relay Therapeutics’ initial discovery programs in cancer have led to the development of highly selective inhibitors of disease-causing proteins in genomically defined patient populations.
The Series C financing was led by the SoftBank Vision Fund and included participation from additional new investors including Foresite Capital, Perceptive Advisors and Tavistock Group. Existing investors GV, Casdin Capital, BVF Partners, EcoR1 Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, and an affiliate of D.E. Shaw Research also participated in the round.
Proceeds from this financing are anticipated to be used to accelerate the implementation of Relay Therapeutics’ long-term strategy. It will support the expansion of the company’s discovery efforts, advance existing programs into the clinic and bolster its broad platform and diverse team.
“We are at a unique moment in the evolution of drug discovery where we can realize the promise of integrating ever more powerful experimental and computational discovery tools to tackle previously undruggable protein targets. The success of our early programs validates the potential of our platform to create breakthrough therapies that address a broad range of diseases,” said Sanjiv Patel, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Relay Therapeutics.
“A financing of this magnitude allows Relay Therapeutics to significantly scale and advance both its platform and its pipeline. We are thrilled by the strong support of our investors for our mission, vision and strategy,” said Alexis Borisy, Chairman of Relay Therapeutics and Partner at Third Rock Ventures.
“We are proud to support Relay Therapeutics’ world-class team expand its efforts across a larger number of programs and therapeutic areas to develop tomorrow’s life-saving treatments,” said Deep Nishar, Senior Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, investment adviser to the SoftBank Vision Fund.
About Relay Therapeutics
Relay Therapeutics is committed to creating medicines that will have a transformative impact on patients by building a unique discovery platform centered on understanding how the conformation of proteins relate to function. Whereas prior approaches to imaging proteins have been limited to static pictures, Relay Therapeutics’ approach overcomes this challenge by combining unprecedented computational power with leading edge experimental techniques in structural biology, biophysics, chemistry and biology. This integration illuminates – for the first time – the full mobility of a protein and provides key insights into how the dynamic nature of a protein’s conformation regulates function. By applying these insights, Relay Therapeutics aims to modulate protein conformation to develop novel therapies for patients. The company’s initial programs are focused on developing therapeutics in oncology. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Relay Therapeutics is a private company launched in 2016 with financing from Third Rock Ventures and an affiliate of D. E. Shaw Research. Prior to the Series C, the company had raised $120 million.