Queen's University spin-out AMPLY Discovery secures $1.75M for AI drug discovery

AMPLY Discovery announced today that it has raised a $1.75 million seed round for its proprietary AI-driven drug discovery platform. 

Twin Path Ventures led the round, with participation from US-based Venture Science, Co-fund NI, the British Business Bank, and QUBIS Limited.

AMPLY was spun out of Queen's University Belfast to commercialise a computational platform developed in the Creevey Lab and based on over 10 years of scientific research. 

Founded by leading computational biology scientists Dr Ben Thomas, Dermot Tierney and Prof Chris Creevey, the company is using this funding to accelerate the development of its discovery programmes through the preclinical stage.

According to Dr Ben Thomas, CEO and Chief Architect of AMPLY:

“Ten years ago, I began combining financial modeling expertise with computational biology to create a drug discovery platform.

Evolution has spent billions of years perfecting natural defence mechanisms, and now we're using AI to unlock this wisdom.” 

Thomas’ interest isn’t just professional — his father died from a drug-resistant infection the healthcare system couldn't treat. 

He shared:

“At Queen's, I built AMPLY to tackle deadly diseases differently, creating technology that will save lives when current treatments fail."

AMPLY has developed a drug discovery engine that leverages the convergence of AI, Next Generation Sequencing and Synthetic Biology to accelerate the discovery of cures for diseases caused by people’s different genetic variations. 

The platform analyses biological molecules, identifies potential treatment targets, and bio-prints real molecules that can be quickly tested and improved in the lab. 

With AMPLYfolioAI, the company's scientists are decoding disease complexity, designing smarter biologic drugs, and moving to a precision process which promises to be faster, cheaper, and at a scale never before possible.

Katie Lockwood, Partner at Twin Path, said: 

“We're impressed by Amply's proprietary experimental dataset, their unique AI approach that incorporates human expertise, and their ability to validate AI discoveries through in vitro and in vivo testing. 

The founding team exemplifies the cross-disciplinary expertise we seek in breakthrough AI investments. 

Their application of AI to computational biology has already yielded impressive results that could transform drug discovery for complex diseases.”

Lead image: Freepik.