Scottish tech company Chemify has received $1.6 million from the Gates Foundation to continue the discovery of small molecules for tuberculosis (TB). 

Building on a successful collaboration with Lgenia, the expanded project will leverage Chemify’s automated platform to design and synthesise new drug leads, aiming to address one of the world’s most urgent infectious diseases. 

This next phase builds on Chemify’s earlier collaboration funded by the Gates Foundation, bringing the total financing to $3.2 million and demonstrating the application of digital chemistry to accelerate small-molecule discovery.  

Insights from the previous initiative helped refine Chemify’s Chemputation workflows for compound design, chemical reaction planning and validation, strengthening the company’s ability to deliver high-quality candidates efficiently and at scale for therapeutic and disease applications. 

“We’re honoured that yet another collaborator has decided to renew their partnership with Chemify,” said Lee Cronin, CEO and Founder of Chemify. 

“Continued support from the Gates Foundation enables us to build on our work with Lgenia and push the boundaries of digital chemistry for global health to address tuberculosis. 

“Chemputation lets us design small molecules directly from code which our AI-enabled digital chemistry platform ensures is makeable, turning chemistry into a programmable science where Chemify’s systems can create new therapeutics rapidly and reproducibly.” 

Under the expanded collaboration, Lgenia and Chemify will collaboratively define strategies for the design and optimisation of new molecules. It is hoped the teams will identify and validate compounds against high-priority TB targets, advancing the most promising candidates toward hit-to-lead development. 

Bruno Quinney, Content Team, DDW