Sirenas Receives Research Grant Totaling $1.68 M To Accelerate Its Drug Discovery Technology, ATLANTIS™

SAN DIEGO, Dec. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sirenas, LLC ("Sirenas"), a biotechnology company harnessing computational approaches to discover therapeutics derived from nature's chemistry, announced that it has received a new grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance ATLANTIS™, the company's proprietary drug discovery technology.  With today's announcement, Sirenas has now received two research grant awards from the foundation totaling $1.68 M. 

ATLANTIS™ uses "big data" approaches to uncover the relationships between millions of natural small molecule metabolites and disease relevant biological assays. This process enables Sirenas to efficiently gain insights into the therapeutic potential of each molecule more rapidly than traditional drug discovery approaches. With the funds from the foundation, Sirenas will accelerate the use of ATLANTIS™, including the integration of machine learning approaches, to identify therapeutic candidates to treat widespread infectious diseases including tuberculosis and malaria.

"Sirenas is honored to be a long-time recipient of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funding to support breakthrough drug discovery approaches like ATLANTIS™ to uncover new ways to treat these debilitating infectious diseases," said Jake Beverage, PharmD., Co-Founder and CEO of Sirenas.  "Funds from this grant will broaden the use of our ATLANTIS™ technology, enhance our fundamental processes to enable efficient drug discovery, and deepen our focus on infectious diseases."  

Bob More, Managing Director of Alta Partners and a member of the board of Sirenas, added, "The grant capital from the foundation provides a creative and efficient approach to accelerate our drug discovery capabilities.  We look forward to collaborating with the foundation, who have brought unique skills to bear on sourcing and identifying new chemistry, on our shared goal to eradicate these infectious diseases from the globe."

About ATLANTIS™

In September 2015, Sirenas launched its proprietary data mining technology named ATLANTIS™ to uncover the therapeutic potential of nature's chemistry in a wide range of global microbiome collections.  Initially, Sirenas has deployed this technology in marine environments to sustainably collect samples of organisms such as sponges, cyanobacteria and algae, with their commensal microbial communities, providing a source of valuable chemical diversity. Through these efforts, Sirenas has amassed a highly curated collection of thousands of nature-inspired molecules that can be interrogated for their therapeutic potential.

ATLANTIS™ uses data mining approaches to understand the relationships between millions of natural small molecule metabolites and disease relevant biological assays.  ATLANTIS™ provides rapid insights into the therapeutic potential, chemical novelty, structure activity relationships and global distribution of each metabolite. This functionality enables the uncovering of therapeutic leads from a previously hidden, rich pool of privileged chemistry that can be leveraged to help tackle the greatest unmet disease needs such as infectious diseases and oncology.

About Sirenas

Sirenas is a privately-held biotechnology company harnessing computational approaches to discover therapeutics derived from nature's chemistry to treat the world's most pressing unmet medical needs.  Through this unique approach, Sirenas has amassed a broad catalogue of molecules and has applied its proprietary data mining technology ATLANTIS™ to these scientific learnings.  Using ATLANTIS™ and next-generation synthetic chemistry, Sirenas has created a first-in-class approach to drug discovery and has identified promising small molecule drug candidates and conjugates.  By continuing to advance its technology, including machine learning enhancements, Sirenas expects ATLANTIS™ to continue to discover novel drugs across a wide range of therapeutic areas, particularly where new mechanisms are needed.  Due to Sirenas' expertise in the field, the company has formed research partnerships including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the California Institute for Biomedical Research to advance ATLANTIS™ and its emerging pipeline of immuno-oncology and infectious disease programs. Sirenas maintains its headquarters in San Diego, CA.  For more information, please visit www.SirenasMD.com.

Sirenas Company Contact:

Jake Beverage, PharmD
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
[email protected]        

Sirenas Media Contact:

Amy Conrad
Juniper Point
[email protected] 
858-366-3243

SOURCE Sirenas, LLC