A pharmaceutical company that just raised $200 million announced the acquisition of a quantum computing start-up

Last week, Odyssey Therapeuticss, an innovative drug developer headquartered in Boston, USA, announced the completion of a US$218 million Series A financing. The funds will be used to advance multiple pipeline projects and further expand its drug discovery platform, and expand the targetable drug genome for oncology and immunology.

According to the British "Daily Telegraph" report, Odyssey has acquired a majority stake in the British quantum computing startup Rahko.

London-based Rahko is developing software for drug discovery using quantum computers. The company was founded in 2018 by computer science graduates from University College London.

The startup previously received approximately $1.6 million in seed funding from investors including Balderton Capital, Charlie Songhurst, James Field, John Spindler and Tom McInerney in 2019.

Rahko's website stated that it is "solving the problem of drug discovery through quantum machine learning" and is developing a drug discovery service called Hyrax that applies drug discovery algorithms to quantum computers. LinkedIn shows that it has about a dozen employees. A technology investor said that Rahko has been working hard to raise more funds. Both Rahko and Odyssey declined to comment.

One of the frequently mentioned use cases of quantum computers is pharmaceuticals, and the industry is often plagued by slow and risky scientific research in search of drug treatments. Quantum's powerful computing power and its ability to simulate the interaction of molecules and molecules make it theoretically very suitable for the industry.

Rahko’s website states: “Today Hyrax can achieve faster and lower-cost drug discovery through AI, and in the future, quantum computing can achieve higher prediction accuracy.”

In 2020, Rahko was named one of the hottest new startups in Europe. Earlier in 2021, it also announced a partnership with pharmaceutical giant Merck.

Rahko team

There are only a handful of quantum computing companies in the UK, and many of them are in a very early stage, but this technology is seen as vital to national security and scientific innovation.

Sebastian Weidt, CEO of Universal Quantum, a Brighton-based startup, said the UK faces the challenge of keeping the best quantum companies in the UK. He said: "If you are thinking about British sovereignty, then this is a real threat and a question of how to retain good start-ups, good knowledge and talent."

The British "Daily Telegraph" stated that American investors often put tremendous pressure on British founders to move to Silicon Valley to ensure that their work is funded, especially quantum computing.

In 2019, PsiQuantum, a quantum start-up company founded by British scientists, moved to Palo Alto, Silicon Valley as a whole, and gained support from American venture capitalists. The startup raised $450 million at a valuation of $3.1 billion earlier this year.

This summer, the British quantum software company Cambridge Quantum sold a majority stake to Honeywell, a large US group, and Honeywell merged it with its own quantum division. Honeywell said it will invest up to US$300 million in the combined company.

The cost of developing quantum technology is very high, so American investors have provided hundreds of millions of dollars to build functional quantum computers that can be used for commercial purposes.

For many years, Britain has struggled to retain the best talents in artificial intelligence and biotechnology from wealthy American investors. In 2014, DeepMind was acquired by Google for US$500 million, and this year Vaccitech, which helped develop AstraZeneca’s vaccine, chose to list it in the United States.

link:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/12/12/quantum-drug-discovery-start-up-rahko-snapped-us-investor-odyssey/