A Durham-based biotechnology company has raised $6 million from an investor, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday.
Avicenna Biosciences said in the filing the money was raised by selling debt.
The drug development company is using machine learning-enhanced medicinal chemistry to accelerate the lead-to-candidate optimization process for small molecule drug development.
According to the NC Biotechnology Center, the company is working on a drug to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
Chris Meldrum is the president and CEO of Avicenna, which was founded in 2020. He is also entrepreneur in residence at DCVC Bio, which backs entrepreneurs who are building meaningful solutions in therapeutics, food and agriculture by the application of computational technologies that will transform the life sciences.
Thomas Kaiser and Pieter Burger are the co-founders of the company. Kaiser is the chief scientific officer of the company, and Burger is a research professor at the Medical University of South Carolina.
The company previously raised $2.5 million in September 2020 and $3 million in December 2022, according to Crunchbase.