Deep Genomics Expands Laboratory, appoints Johan Fransson as Head of Preclinical Research

June 18, 2019

TORONTO, Ontario, Canada – June 18, 2019. Deep Genomics, the leading AI therapeutics company, announced today that the output of its discovery pipeline has quadrupled in the past year and that it has appointed Johan Fransson, Ph.D. as Head of Preclinical Research, effective immediately.

“We have discovered dozens of novel targets that can address the unmet need of tens of thousands of patients suffering from rare genetic disorders,” said Brendan Frey, Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “The number of programs in our pipeline has grown from two to seven and we have expanded our experimental facility accordingly to support preclinical research.”

“At this time, we require a leader with experience in building and managing teams that can take programs from target validation to candidate declaration and IND application,” said Frey. “I am pleased to announce that Johan Fransson has joined us to take on this responsibility. Johan’s experience with preclinical research in big pharma and biotech startups, and his openness to an AI-accelerated approach to discovery, makes him ideal for this role.”

Johan Fransson

“I am delighted to join a rapidly growing team of exceptional scientists with cross- functional expertise in genetics, artificial intelligence and experimental molecular and cell biology,” said Fransson. “The AI workbench solves a lot of the bottlenecks that I have seen in industry, by predicting target discovery and therapeutic development outcomes up front. That’s critical for substantially reducing failure rates and allowing us to move our candidates swiftly into the clinic. I’m looking forward to advancing programs that will help patients in a way that was not previously possible.”


Fransson was Project Leader in preclinical research at Janssen Research and Development, in San Diego, from 2006 to 2015, and led antibody discovery and development at Northern Biologics, a startup company developing immune-oncology therapies, from 2015 to 2019.


About Deep Genomics. Deep Genomics is creating a universe of individualized genetic medicines. It is building an AI Workbench that its team uses to accelerate all aspects of drug discovery and development, including target discovery, lead optimization and clinical trial design. The workbench combines artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced robotics systems, the latest biomedical data, specialized software systems and high volume data acquisition. Deep Genomics is located in the heart of Toronto, next to the University of Toronto, four research hospitals, three medical research institutes, and the AI research labs of Google, Uber and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Web: www.deepgenomics.com. Press: Megan Murphy megan@deepgenomics.com

Press Release June 2019