May 1, 2025

8 minutes read Belfast-based AMPLY is using its unique AI-driven drug discovery engine to fight aggressive cancers, such as triple-negative breast cancer, and drug-resistant pathogens, which threaten to make our current antibiotics ineffective against infections BELFAST, 1 MAY, 11AM GMT:  AMPLY Discovery (“AMPLY”) announced today that it has raised a $1.75m (£1.3 million) seed round to develop innovative medicines using its proprietary AI-driven drug discovery platform. The round was led by Twin Path Ventures, a specialist AI investor, with participation from US-based Venture Science, Co-fund NI, the British Business Bank, and QUBIS Limited. This hugely ambitious team is developing novel gene-silencing therapies for aggressive cancers, like triple-negative breast cancer and acute myeloid leukaemia. Additionally, as drug-resistant pathogens threaten to render our current portfolio of antibiotics ineffective, AMPLY is working on the delivery of its current preclinical drug discovery programmes to develop nebulised treatments for chronic and drug-resistant lung infections using antimicrobial peptides that can be inhaled directly into the lungs. AMPLY was spun out of Queen’s University Belfast, a global life sciences powerhouse, to commercialise a computational platform developed in the Creevey Lab and based on over 10 years of scientific research. Founded by leading computational biology scientist Dr. Ben Thomas, Dermot Tierney and Prof Chris Creevey, the company is using this funding to accelerate the development of its discovery programmes through the preclinical stage. “Ten years ago, I began combining financial modeling expertise with computational biology to create a drug discovery platform. Evolution has spent billions of years perfecting natural defense mechanisms, and now we’re using AI to unlock this wisdom. This isn’t just professional for me; my father died from a drug-resistant infection our healthcare system couldn’t treat. At Queen’s, I built AMPLY to tackle deadly diseases differently, creating technology that will save lives when current treatments fail. Dr. Ben Thomas, CEO and Chief Architect of AMPLY AMPLY has developed a drug discovery engine that leverages the convergence of AI, Next Generation Sequencing and Synthetic Biology to accelerate the discovery of cures for diseases caused by people’s different genetic variations. The platform analyses biological molecules, identifies potential treatment targets, and bio-prints real molecules that can be quickly tested and improved in the lab. With AMPLYfolioAI the company’s scientists are decoding disease complexity, designing smarter biologic drugs, and moving to a precision process which promises to be faster, cheaper, and at a scale never before possible. The real-world impact of AMPLY’s work addresses two of healthcare’s most urgent challenges. Whether it’s aggressive cancers or Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), the fundamental problem is the same: existing treatments are failing too many patients because a one-size fits all approach does not take into account genetic diversity. This means aggressive cancers like triple-negative breast cancer continue to have poor survival rates despite advances in treatment. Each year, bacteria’s resistance to antimicrobial drugs directly causes more than 1.27 million globally and contributes to nearly 5 million more. AMPLY’s approach tackles each challenge using the same core innovation, which is designed to find effective treatments where current options are inadequate. By 2050, the economic burden of these treatment gaps  could exceed trillions in healthcare costs and GDP losses globally . “We’re deploying our platform against complex cancers and multidrug resistant pathogens that threaten our current antibiotic arsenal. This investment is a vote of confidence in AMPLY, especially given the challenging fundraising environment for seed-stage biotechs. It enables us to execute our plan and target therapeutic areas with significant unmet needs. Dermot Tierney, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at AMPLY While stewardship and reducing antibiotic use are important strategies, AMPLY believes these alone cannot outrun evolution, which inevitably drives resistance to treatment. The company is taking a proactive approach to this global challenge – developing new effective antimicrobials rapidly, and at a reduced cost. AMPLY is uniquely positioned in this difficult market as it is not a single-asset company but offers a comprehensive platform approach, focused both on achieving technical validation of the platform and addressing diseases with high unmet needs. Commenting on Twin Path’s conviction in Amply, “Data is the new oil. We’re impressed by Amply’s proprietary experimental dataset, their unique AI approach that incorporates human expertise, and their ability to validate AI discoveries through in vitro and in vivo testing. The founding team exemplifies the cross-disciplinary expertise we seek in breakthrough AI investments. Their application of AI to computational biology has already yielded impressive results that could transform drug discovery for complex diseases.” Katie Lockwood (Partner) About AMPLY Discovery AMPLY Discovery is a spin-out from the Queen’s University Belfast that employs machine learning and AI techniques to mine vast biological data to discover novel medicines. The classes of molecules that AMPLY can target, such as RNA, proteins and peptides, offer significant potential as new biopharmaceutical drug products which target hard-to-treat diseases. About Queen’s University Belfast Queen’s is a public research university located in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Queen’s is a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive UK-based universities. Queen’s has a long history of conducting innovative and world-leading research with partners in industry, government, public policy, social and healthcare, the arts and the voluntary sector, nationally and internationally. About Twin Path Ventures London-based Twin Path is a hands-on fund backing AI-first startups who are building the next generation of transformative technologies.