Flagship's New AI Covalent Chemistry Startup; $50M Commitment and Pfizer Program
Flagship Pioneering announced Expedition Medicines after three years of internal development, committing $50 million to scale a quantum-chemistry-driven generative platform for covalent small-molecule discovery, with programs in oncology, immunology, and other well-defined diseases. Expedition, founded in 2022, has begun multi-target exploration in prostate cancer under Flagship’s 2023 strategic collaboration with Pfizer.
Expedition frames undruggable proteins as a reactivity problem rather than a reversible-binding problem. The company describes a “reaction-first” covalent insight in which quantum interactions between small molecules and reactive surface elements enable high-potency engagement even in shallow pockets.
The platform combines a chemoproteomics screening and data-generation engine with generative models trained on quantitative molecular interaction data to design de novo covalent candidates against transcription factors, adaptor proteins, regulators, and protein–protein interfaces.
Expedition Medicine's pipeline at the time of release
For context, Flagship reports more than 100 originated ventures and about $14 billion in assets under management as of July 2024, with an ecosystem that includes Foghorn Therapeutics, Generate Biomedicines, Inari, Indigo Agriculture, Lila Sciences (raised $235M this September at $1B valuation), Moderna, Sana Biotechnology, Tessera Therapeutics, and Valo Health.
Topic: Biotech Ventures
