In a recent Axios article, Scala Biodesign raised a $16 million Series A led by Grove Ventures to accelerate protein engineering in drug development.
Protein engineering remains a major bottleneck, with issues sometimes only discovered in late-stage clinical trials, increasing cost and risk.
Scala combines LLMs, physics-based modeling, and evolutionary data to design and optimize proteins more efficiently across biologics, enzymes, antibodies, and vaccines.
Nine of the top 20 pharma companies are already customers, as the platform aims to become part of routine drug development workflows.
Rising demand to de-risk early-stage development is driving increased investment in AI-driven protein design, with more startups entering the space.
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