Silicon Therapeutics

Silicon Therapeutics, established in Boston in 2016 by co-founders Lanny Sun and Lijun Sun, carved a niche in the biopharmaceutical industry by developing a proprietary computational drug discovery platform. The firm was founded with the objective of transforming drug development through the application of advanced technology. A significant milestone in the company's history was its acquisition by Roivant Sciences in February 2021 for $450 million in Roivant equity, with potential for further payments based on regulatory and commercial achievements.

The company's core business revolves around its in-silico drug design platform, which leverages computational physics to simulate biological molecules and their interactions. This platform integrates quantum mechanics, molecular dynamics, and statistical thermodynamics to predict binding energies and the conformational behavior of molecules, addressing key bottlenecks in the drug discovery process. The computational work is supported by a proprietary supercomputing cluster and custom hardware, as well as in-house experimental laboratories for biophysics, medicinal chemistry, and biology. This integrated approach facilitates the rapid advancement of small molecule drug candidates designed to engage challenging disease targets. One of the company's notable achievements before its acquisition was advancing its small molecule STING (Stimulator of Interferon Genes) agonist, SNX281, into a Phase I clinical trial for patients with advanced solid tumors or lymphoma in November 2020.

The leadership team included key figures who joined Roivant's drug discovery leadership after the acquisition. Dr. Woody Sherman, who served as Chief Scientific Officer, brought extensive experience from his time as a senior scientific executive at Schrödinger. His background in computational chemistry and biomolecular simulations was central to the company's platform development. Dr. Huafeng Xu, a pioneer in molecular dynamics methods from his tenure at D. E. Shaw Research, and Dr. Chris Winter, an accomplished drug discovery biologist with experience at Sanofi and Blueprint Medicines, were also pivotal to the company's scientific direction. The acquisition was intended to merge Silicon Therapeutics' physics-based approach with Roivant's VantAI's machine learning capabilities to enhance their combined efforts in areas like targeted protein degradation, allosteric inhibitors, and molecular glues.

Keywords: computational drug discovery, small molecule therapeutics, in silico design, computational physics, quantum mechanics, molecular dynamics, drug design platform, STING agonist, targeted protein degradation, biopharmaceutical, Roivant Sciences, protein-ligand binding, allosteric inhibitors, molecular glues, high-affinity ligands, supercomputing cluster, biophysics, medicinal chemistry, computational chemistry, oncology drug development