MA-ANIMOL-DISCOVERY
Animol Discovery, Inc., a pioneer in veterinary pharmaceutical discovery, today announced it has raised $34.0 million in Series B financing. The investment was led by Novalis Lifesciences, with participation from Finistere Ventures and existing investor Anterra Capital. The proceeds allow the company to expand and advance its pipeline of novel active pharmaceutical ingredients through clinical development and further enhance its cutting-edge drug discovery platform.
The $40Bn animal health industry continues to demand novel medicines to treat infectious and chronic diseases in companion and production animals. Recent successes, such as Apoquel™ from Zoetis and Nexguard™ from Boehringer Ingelheim, demonstrate the potential to build towards blockbuster franchises in the sector with novel pharmaceutical products.
“Pet parents and livestock farmers continue to demand novel veterinary pharmaceuticals that can protect animals against diseases and improve quality of life,” said Andrew Plant PhD, chief executive officer, Animol Discovery. “Despite this strong demand, innovation is lagging. At Animol, we seek to address this innovation gap by leveraging the most advanced tools from human pharma to bring forward a wealth of new medicines that can benefit animals and the people who care for them.”
Founded in 2020 and incubated by Anterra Capital, Animol is pioneering the use of DNA Encoded Library (DEL) drug discovery technology coupled with powerful machine learning approaches to enable the rapid discovery of novel veterinary medicines.
“We have built Animol on the same cutting edge discovery techniques that we are using to disrupt drug discovery in human pharma (ZebiAI - acquired by Relay Therapeutics) and crop protection (Enko Chem),” said Philip Austin, Managing Partner at Anterra Capital. “Translating these tools to the massive opportunity available in veterinary pharma was the next obvious step and we are already seeing their use successfully build into a rich pipeline of promising compounds.”
Animol also announced that Marijn Dekkers PhD, founder & chairman of Novalis LifeSciences LLC will join the Board of Directors. Dr. Dekkers formerly served as the CEO of Bayer AG, and as the CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. At Bayer he oversaw one of the largest global animal health companies.
“Most current medicines in the $40B veterinary pharma market are derived from drugs that have been originally developed for humans. There is of course nothing wrong with that, but there are many animal-specific diseases that require a targeted effort. I like Animol Discovery’s approach to use its breakthrough drug discovery platform to specifically address significant unmet needs in animals. I am looking forward to working with the team to optimize the opportunity ahead,” said Dr. Dekkers.
“It is a great pleasure to be able to welcome Marijn Dekkers to our Board of Directors. Dr. Dekkers is an exceptional industry leader with a track record of turning innovation into successful businesses across the spectrum of life sciences, including in animal health,” said Andrew Plant PhD, chief executive officer, Animol Discovery. “He is an excellent addition to our team of experienced industry leaders.”
“I am also delighted to bring Doug Hutchens on board as chief scientific officer. Dr. Hutchens brings a wealth of industry experience in animal health research and product development; having someone who has also served as Chief Veterinary Officer within a major animal health company brings huge value to our expanding team,” added Dr. Plant.
“I am thrilled by the prospect of joining Animol’s dynamic and experienced team as chief scientific officer,” said Doug Hutchens, DVM, PhD. “The company’s ability to interrogate protein targets with billions of DNA-tagged molecules and, using DNA sequencing, identify selective inhibitors from numerous diverse chemical families is game changing in animal health drug discovery. Leveraging these data with proprietary, highly predictive machine learning algorithms, is enabling the identification of novel drug-like compounds in a matter of weeks from the initial DEL screen. This technology platform greatly expands the opportunities, significantly increases the probability, and accelerates the timeline in developing new classes of therapeutic molecules.”
About Animol
Animol is a pioneer in using state of the art drug discovery technology to discover small molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients to transform standards of care in veterinary medicine. The company is reducing the time and cost to discover novel active ingredients utilizing DNA-encoded libraries, machine learning/AI and structure-based design.
Animol is a private company based in Boston, Massachusetts. For more information see www.Animol-discovery.com
About Novalis LifeSciences LLC
Novalis LifeSciences LLC is an investment and advisory firm for the Life Science industry that was founded in 2017 by Marijn E. Dekkers. With a team of experienced operating executives from the Life Science industry, Novalis funds and advises visionary Life Science entrepreneurs. In addition to making financial investments, Novalis provides strategic and operational advice to portfolio companies that are at a critical growth stage in their development. For more information, visit www.novalislifesciences.com
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220728005186/en/
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
EIG Acquires a 49.87% Stake in Transportadora de Gas del Perú (TgP)19.12.2025 18:42:00 CET | Press release
EIG, through its managed investment vehicles, acquired a 49.87% equity stake in Transportadora de Gas del Perú S.A. (“TgP”) from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board today. TgP operates Peru’s principal natural gas and natural gas liquids pipelines under a long-term concession, supplying approximately 40% of the country’s power generation. “We are delighted to complete this transaction and embark on the next chapter of our partnership with TgP,” said Matt Hartman, EIG’s Global Head of Infrastructure. “Our priority is to support TgP’s operational excellence and long-term stability, delivering value for customers and stakeholders throughout Peru.” About EIG EIG is a leading institutional investor in the global energy and infrastructure sectors with $24.3 billion assets under management as of September 30, 2025. EIG specializes in private investments in energy and energy-related infrastructure on a global basis. During its 43-year history, EIG has committed over $51.7 billion to the energ
CyberArk Named a Leader in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Integrated Solutions for Identity Security 202519.12.2025 17:00:00 CET | Press release
Unified platform uses AI and automation to accelerate time-intensive workflows, streamline operations and improve threat detectionEnables CISOs to consolidate cybersecurity stack, optimizing total cost of ownership CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR), the global leader in identity security, today announced that it has been recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Integrated Solutions for Identity Security 2025 Vendor Assessment. CyberArk extends dynamic privilege controls across all identity types with its unified platform, enabling organizations to improve efficiencies and streamline security operations. This IDC MarketScape report notes, “More change has occurred in the identity security marketplace in the past two years than in almost a decade. Vendors are entering a new phase defined by the emergence of intelligence technologies, none of which are specifically defined by any industry standards. Though different by design, the new adjacent IAM offerings are largely focused on im
New York Liberty and Ant International’s Alipay+ Announce Multiyear Partnership Focused on Empowerment, Sustainability and Youth Development19.12.2025 14:30:00 CET | Press release
Ant International’s Alipay+ Named an Official Sponsor and Innovation Partner for Sustainability of the Team The New York Liberty and Ant International’s Alipay+, a leading cross-border fintech services platform based in Singapore, today announced a multiyear partnership, making Alipay+ an Official Sponsor and Innovation Partner for Sustainability of the New York Liberty. Through this partnership, Alipay+ and the Liberty will jointly support community programs designed to advance community empowerment, environmental sustainability and youth development across New York City. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251219678825/en/ Peng Yang, CEO, Ant International and Clara Wu Tsai, Vice Chair, Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment; Governor, New York Liberty “Our partnership with Alipay+ goes beyond the game,” said Keia Clarke, Chief Executive Officer, New York Liberty. “Together, we are investing in the future of New York
Parse Biosciences and Codebreaker Labs Partner to Apply Whole Transcriptome Single Cell Profiling and Causal Genomics at Scale19.12.2025 14:00:00 CET | Press release
Collaboration pairs robust synthetic biology platform with massive scale single cell sequencing to overcome long-standing challenges in variant mapping Parse Biosciences, the leading provider of scalable and accessible single cell sequencing solutions, today announced a collaboration with Codebreaker Labs to develop and validate a breakthrough platform capable of testing thousands of genetic variants in parallel and measuring their effects at single cell resolution. By combining Codebreaker’s synthetic biology platform and variant engineering capabilities with the scale and accessibility of Parse’s Evercode™ technology, the collaboration aims to generate the causal data increasingly sought by AI developers, drug discovery teams, and clinical researchers. Today’s genomic studies rely heavily on observational data, or variants that appear in large populations. But rare and private variants, often only seen in one individual or family, are nearly impossible to study this way because too f
Cinemo Launches Cinemo ICO™, Accelerating the AI-Driven Intelligent Cockpit19.12.2025 11:00:00 CET | Press release
The future of in-car intelligence, delivered today for hyper-personalized, safer, smarter, and more exceptional journeys Cinemo, a global leader and highly innovative one-stop-shop provider for fully integrated digital media products announces today the launch of its next-generation, AI-powered cockpit solutions - Cinemo ICO™. By bringing agentic AI, Cinemo unlocks a truly intelligent cockpit - connecting vehicles, drivers, passengers, and their digital ecosystems into one seamless, personal and context-aware flow. The first product launched within the Cinemo ICO™ portfolio is Cinemo ICO™ MediaMind, enabling advanced intelligent media discovery. It combines the latest agentic AI technology with Cinemo’s core expertise of providing automotive-grade media management, helping users effortlessly discover the right content for every ride - perfectly matched to their taste, context, and environment. With Cinemo ICO™ MediaMind, the digital media experience evolves: using cutting-edge large la
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom