With $7.5 million of Series A funding in hand and a Series B round on deck, Cellworks Group Inc. is advancing lead drug CWG952 toward the clinic for rheumatoid arthritis.

The drug is a combination of three existing compounds, all of which either are or will soon be generic, and none of which are used for arthritis. The three drugs are dosed subtherapeutically, and preclinical studies have shown up to a 70 percent impact on disease progression. Cellworks co-founder and president, Pradeep Fernandes, said CWG952's efficacy is "similar" to Enbrel (etanercept, Amgen Inc.) but with a small molecule rather than an expensive, side-effect-ridden biologic – and it is designed to work in patients who don't respond to anti-TNF-alpha treatments.

The concept of combining low doses of proven drugs for a new indication has been seen before with Qnexa (phentermine/topiramate, Vivus Inc.) and Contrave (naltrexone/bupropion, Orexigen Therapeutics Inc.) for obesity.

Fernandes agreed their progress has been a "good sign" for CWG952, but he said Cellworks' drug is "even more beautiful" because it tapped Cellworks' platform technology to combine three drugs from different indications that work synergistically toward the same phenotype.

That platform is what differentiates Cellworks, and the biotech's co-founder and CEO Taher Abbasi is quick to point out that it's "not a discovery engine – it's a design engine. Discovery is something you find; we rationally design drugs."

That design engine consists of a digital library with data from more than 100 existing molecularly targeted compounds in 1 million in vivo studies. Cellworks runs various combinations of compounds at various concentrations.

"This is not similar to a cell screen, it is actually a disease model," Fernandes said. Abbasi added that while typical screens might look at one biomarker or phenotype, Cellworks can look at a range of biomarkers and endpoints.

The approach arose out of Fernandes and Abbasi's experience in the software and semiconductor industries at companies like Cadence Design Systems Inc., Get2Chip Inc. and Synopsys Inc.

Fernandes founded Get2Chip, which made synthesis tools for system-on-chip design and was acquired by Cadence for $120 million.

Fernandes explained that when you have more than 1 billion transistors on a chip, a key issue is figuring out "how you model such a complex beast."

How do you simulate outcomes, test it, capture input, validate it and annotate it? After using various technologies and algorithms to address such questions, Fernandes and Abbasi wondered if those same answers could be applied to another complex field: life sciences, and specifically, proteomics.

"We wanted to bring more predictability into life sciences," Fernandes explained.

Cellworks was founded in 2005 with the help of Shireen Vali, a neurobiologist from the University of California at Davis, who became the start-up's chief scientific officer. The team worked together to marry semiconductor algorithms with proteomics and created a platform that could emulate human physiology and predict the in vivo effects of various drug combinations.

Saratoga, Calif.-based Cellworks raised a $5 million Series A round in 2009, led by Artiman Ventures with support from friends and family. It advanced CWG952 into investigational new drug-enabling studies, moving from the start of screening to preclinical validation in less than nine months.

The company also designed a second combination compound for rheumatoid arthritis as well as two for cancer.

Cellworks also has an antibacterial program and has done some work for AstraZeneca plc under a partnership. But in general, Cellworks has no intention of being a service provider; the biotech plans to use its platform to develop its own combinations of existing compounds, which it will seek to partner after proof of concept.

How quickly it gets that proof-of-concept data depends on the outcome of its current fundraising activities. Abbasi said Cellworks is "initiating Series B activity" and would likely seek venture support.

Although it's rare to see a venture-backed biotech spend money on anything except its pipeline, Cellworks and investor Artiman also collaborate on a nonprofit initiative called Youth Science research initiative Program. The month-long program is conducted annually in California and Bangalore and combines lectures, guest speakers, interactive workshops and immersion at biotech companies.

Abbasi said the program arose from a desire to show high school and early college students that they can do more with a science degree than become a doctor.