Discngine receives €600,000 ($743K) from Bpifrance

Paris, France, May 14, 2018 – Discngine, a software company specialized in developing applications for life sciences research, today announces that it has received funding of €600,000 ($743K) from Bpifrance. This figure comprises an interest-free loan of €300,000 and an ‘innovation loan’ of €300,000. The objective is to carry out a research and development program, under the name 3decision®, which will enable users to consult, manage and communicate around the structural data of a wide range of biomolecules. The two-year program for the development and commercial launch of the application started in March 2018.

The field of drug discovery aided by macromolecular structures is undergoing radical transformation. It has a substantial impact on the outcome of the research and development of new bioactive chemical entities. In recent years, new methods for determining experimental structures have come to light and well-established methods, like X-ray crystallography, have been improved dramatically, increasing the yield. An exponential increase in the production of structural data is expected over the next decade.

The program draws on two years of internal research and development in an ongoing successful collaboration with Abbvie Inc. The 3decision application developed during these past two years handles the data derived from the experimental methods that determine the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules along with the knowledge generated by the researchers.

With this newly funded program, Discngine’s application will emphasize its collaborative features. Currently, research communities do not have the tools to facilitate the work around structural data within multidisciplinary teams. This application aims to ease communication on complex three-dimensional data, providing a common workspace where all research professionals can access the results of both internal research and publicly available databases at the same time.

Discngine will further develop unique and highly innovative tools that focus on the visual analysis and synthesis of large amounts of structural data, enabling the users to easily access highly informative summaries as ergonomically as possible. Scientifically, efforts will be centered on developing a comprehensive protein-protein contact analytic tool and on the addition of new types of macromolecules, including antibodies and other biological products, with dedicated analysis tools.

“Our goal is to develop a secure application that is easy to use and accessible to medicinal chemists, molecular modelling scientists and structural biologists. All this development will trigger new marketing activity,” said Eric Le Roux, founder and CEO of Discngine. “At the same time, we will develop an on-demand service in order to diversify our marketing channels and potential target markets. With this new application, Discngine targets not only the big pharmaceutical companies but also smaller institutions that could profit from the structural data in their drug research programs.”

About Bpifrance

Bpifrance, a subsidiary of Caisse des Dépôts and the French State, is a trusted partner of entrepreneurs. It provides companies with credit, collateral and equity financing support from start up through to stock exchange listing. Bpifrance also provides guidance services and enhanced support for innovation, external growth and export, in partnership with Business France and Coface.
Bpifrance offers companies a continuum of financing for each key stage in their development and an offer adapted to specific regional features. With 48 regional offices (90% of decisions are made regionally), Bpifrance offers entrepreneurs a tool for economic competitiveness. Bpifrance works in support of the public policies pursued nationally and regionally by the French government, to meet three objectives:

• Support the growth of businesses
• Prepare for future competitiveness
• Contribute to the development of a favorable ecosystem for entrepreneurship

With Bpifrance, companies have a strong and effective local contact to meet all their financial, innovation and investment needs. www.bpifrance.fr  @bpifrance

About Discngine

Discngine is a Paris-based software company specializing in applications for the research departments of life sciences companies; specifically for work related to active molecule discovery. It was established in 2004 by two of Pfizer’s research alumni in order to develop software that increases the effectiveness of life science research. It currently has 42 employees.

Clients include world leaders in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and agrochemical industries.

The company’s offering has historically been developed around custom software, followed by licenses for software components and most recently by licenses for business solutions. The company will now focus on offering catalog products through SaaS and cloud-based subscription models.

www.Discngine.com