Disruptive technology for drug discovery: the journey from laboratory to spinoff
After eight years of laboratory research, Maximilien Levesque, a group leader in the ENS-PSL chemistry department, joined forces with Emmanuelle Martiano to start a new company known as Aqemia. Their spinoff, which specializes in drug research, is growing at a fast pace, and on December 10 it won the backing of a pharmaceutical industry giant, Sanofi, to apply its disruptive technology to the search for effective medications for Covid-19. We take a look at the major stages in this wonderful entrepreneurial adventure in a talk with Maximilien and Bruno Rostand, Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Université PSL.
PSL: Aqemia was founded in 2019 and today it’s booming. Can you tell us a little about the history of the project?
Maximilien Levesque: There’s no question that it all started when I arrived at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and ENS-PSL as a computational scientist in 2013. After spending several years doing post-doctoral fellowships at Oxford, Cambridge, Sorbonne Université and so on, the time had come to start my own research. Two years later I began to see the connections between my research work and the field of drug discovery. I was curious about exploring that connection, so in 2017 I entered the Start-Ulm competition, which offers prizes for start-ups that grew out of the Ecole Normale Supérieure-PSL community. That was an important step that confirmed my initial intuition and brought me in contact with one of our future business angels, Olivier Vaury – another ENS-PSL veteran. He was also the one who introduced me to my future co-founder, Emmanuelle Martiano, who had spent 10 years working in the corporate world at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). That meeting was the real catalyst. The spinoff really got off the ground at the start of 2019 with the help of PSL Valorisation and, later, Elaia and the PSL Innovation Fund, which enabled us to move ahead with our first round of funding in 2019.
Bruno Rostand: At PSL Valorisation, Maximilien’s project drew our attention during the Start-Ulm competition and we were in regular contact so as to help it expand. Our role, in brief, is to create the environment researchers need in order for their projects to mature, to challenge the project leaders to define their project’s value more clearly and to ensure that the relevant technology can be protected. In the case of Aqemia, we were faced with a unique situation because the technology couldn’t be patented. Among other things, PSL Valorisation oversaw the formal transfer of know-how from the laboratory to Aqemia, which helped the company expand more quickly.
PSL: People often describe the path from making a scientific discovery to starting a spinoff as a series of relatively difficult steps. Is that the reality? Was that the case with Aqemia?
An increasing number of young researchers are thinking about entrepreneurial applications for their work.
BR: It’s not entirely false, and I think we shouldn’t deny the difficulties involved. We’re currently seeing a very clear cultural change that is making the process easier. As Université PSL President Alain Fuchs mentioned during the Deeptech Tour organized by PSL and Bifrance in October 2020, we’re seeing an innovation-based culture become more widespread within academia. I would say there’s greater awareness of innovation in both the academic world and the industrial world. An increasing number of young researchers are thinking about entrepreneurial applications for their work. We can see that at competitions like Start-Ulm, which Maximilien mentioned, and the PSL-iTeams training program. In the business world, people now recognize that innovations don’t just come from inside the company, and research laboratories are playing a significant role in that area. Naturally there’s still a culture gap, but the role of technology transfer services is to make that dialogue easier.
ML: I was quite pleasantly surprised. After an hour of discussion, the relevant departments at the CNRS, ENS-PSL, Sorbonne Université and PSL Valorisation all decided on a single point of contact from that point on, which would be PSL Valorisation. That efficiency was borne out later on. For example, it was thanks to the effective collaboration between PSL and Elaia as part of the PSL Innovation Fund that we were able to launch a round of funding even before the licensing agreement was formally signed, and that allowed us to speed things up. That kind of agreement requires a lot of mutual trust among those involved, and that proved essential for Aqemia’s growth. Another thing that helped us along was the goodwill that people showed at every stage of our growth. That may seem minor, but it’s actually critical.
Our biggest asset is our ability to predict, quickly and accurately, whether a molecule is effective.
PSL: Could you give us a simple description of what Aqemia does and what’s innovative about it?
ML: Aqemia invents therapeutic molecules – drug candidates – using algorithms developed over the course of eight years of basic laboratory research sponsored jointly by ENS-PSL and the CNRS. To do that, we combine artificial intelligence with statistical and quantum physics. Our biggest asset is our ability to predict, quickly and accurately, whether a molecule is effective. To give an order of magnitude, our prediction is 10,000 times faster than the market leader. We’re able to predict the efficacy of a million molecules in the span of a day.
PSL: You’ve just signed a partnership with Sanofi to identify new avenues for treating Covid-19. That’s yet another milestone...
M.L: It’s a very big turning point for Aqemia. First, it serves as proof that our technology is innovative and sets us apart, because it’s now been recognized by one of the world leaders in pharmaceutical research. It’s also our first major contract, which is proof that what we offer has commercial appeal.
BR: It’s really a very important milestone: by signing this agreement, Sanofi – a major industry player – has taken the risk of investing in new technology developed by Aqemia. That’s important validation for Aqemia and a sign of the cultural change that’s under way. I hope it’s also a sign that these contacts between major manufacturers, deep tech start-ups that trace their roots to PSL and laboratories will continue to grow.
PSL: What are Aqemia’s prospects for the months and years to come?
M.L: Now that we have this first contract, our goal is to increase our number of collaborations and expand our team, which currently has about 15 people, in the fields of computational chemistry, theoretical chemistry and physics and artificial intelligence. We’re actively recruiting.
We also anticipate a Series A funding round in the first half of 2021 so we can acquire the resources to accelerate and help discover new drug candidates even more rapidly.
