Norwich-based drug discovery startup, Hothouse Therapeutics, has closed a £2.9 million pre-seed funding round to transform modern medicine by developing sustainable, scalable pharmaceutical compounds through AI-optimised plant-based chemistry.
The investment came from SynBioVen, Start Codon, UKI2S, Twin Path Ventures, Wren Capital, a number of angel investors and an Innovate UK grant.
The funding round comes as the company emerges from stealth mode, where the team has been deploying its platform to solve one of the vaccine industry’s most pressing problems: the global dependence on a single, unsustainable source of the critical adjuvant, QS-21.
QS-21 is currently sourced from the bark of a slow-growing Chilean tree, a fragile and resource-intensive supply chain that cannot meet global demand and disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries.
Hothouse Therapeutics’ AI-powered plant bioengineering system can design and grow new chemistry in days, creating a scalable, carbon-positive supply chain that improves global access, especially for developing countries where affordability and availability remain critical barriers.
Whilst the initial focus is on vaccine adjuvants, the company is already planning its first traditional drug discovery programmes, using its platform to identify and then progress assets through to clinical development.
Hothouse Therapeutics uses a transient plant expression system to reprogramme plants, turning the leaves into living laboratories to reach a chemical space that traditional labs cannot. Its BotanAI design engine and BotanBIO production system work in tandem to rapidly generate natural and entirely new-to-nature molecules, delivered as high purity, single entity compounds on accelerated timelines.
Tom Sheppard, CEO of Hothouse Therapeutics, said:
“Our mission is simple. Unlock powerful chemistry, make it sustainable, and get it into the hands of the partners who can deliver vaccines and therapeutics to patients across the globe.”
Sheppard brings deep experience across drug discovery, platform development and company building, and has spent the past year shaping Hothouse Therapeutics into a full-strength team across AI, natural product biology, purification science and chemistry.
The company’s platform originates from the pioneering work of Professor Anne Osbourn OBE, FRS, Novozymes Prize Laureate 2023 and an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences. A global authority on plant natural product pathways, Professor Osbourn’s research has proved that complex molecules like QS-21 can be entirely biosynthesised in plants.
Hothouse Therapeutics is a spin-out from the laboratory of Professor Osbourn at the John Innes Centre in the UK, following a breakthrough in understanding the biosynthesis of the vaccine adjuvant QS-21, which is used in vaccines for COVID-19, malaria, shingles and RSV.
The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its research and development efforts.
