Schrödinger Awarded Grant to Accelerate Drug Discovery in Women’s Health

Schrödinger will receive $4.9 million research grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support early-stage drug discovery of non-hormonal contraceptives

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Schrödinger, Inc. (Nasdaq: SDGR), whose physics-based software platform is transforming the way therapeutics and materials are discovered, today announced it has been awarded a two-year, $4.9 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support a global women’s health initiative.

The grant is part of a Gates Foundation initiative aimed at accelerating emerging opportunities to advance the field of contraceptive drug discovery. The emphasis of this initiative is to develop safe and effective, reversible, non-hormonal contraceptive agents with an improved overall tolerability and side effect profile compared to conventional (hormonal) methods. The goal is to empower women around the globe to take charge of their own health, enabling them to make informed decisions about family planning and have better access to contraceptive options that meet their needs [1].

“We are thrilled to be a part of this important drug discovery initiative that aims to provide an opportunity to remove barriers for women seeking contraceptive care around the globe,” said Karen Akinsanya, Ph.D., executive vice president, chief biomedical scientist and head of discovery research and development at Schrödinger. “This project is an example of Schrödinger’s commitment to global health as part of our broader environmental, societal and corporate social responsibility goals to support diversity, inclusiveness and improving opportunities for all.”

Schrödinger will leverage its computationally driven structure-based drug discovery platform to identify novel, high-affinity, selective small molecule leads for a specific ovarian protein during this initial project.

[1] Accelerating Discovery for Non-Hormonal Contraceptives. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/accelerating-discovery-non-hormonal-contraceptives

About Schrödinger

Schrödinger is transforming the way therapeutics and materials are discovered. Schrödinger has pioneered a physics-based software platform that enables discovery of high-quality, novel molecules for drug development and materials applications more rapidly and at lower cost compared to traditional methods. The software platform is used by biopharmaceutical and industrial companies, academic institutions, and government laboratories around the world. Schrödinger’s multidisciplinary drug discovery team also leverages the software platform to advance collaborative programs and its own pipeline of novel therapeutics to address unmet medical needs.

Founded in 1990, Schrödinger has over 500 employees and is engaged with customers and collaborators in more than 70 countries. To learn more, visit www.schrodinger.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Schrödinger Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 including, but not limited to those regarding our expectations about the speed and capacity of our computational platform, the ability of our platform to identify novel molecules with desired properties and the potential of the initiative to develop non-hormonal contraceptive agents. Statements including words such as "anticipate," "believe," "contemplate," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "target," "will," "would'' and statements in the future tense are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect our current views about our plans, intentions, expectations, strategies, and prospects, which are based on the information currently available to us and on assumptions we have made. Actual results may differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements and are subject to a variety of assumptions, uncertainties, risks and factors that are beyond our control, including our reliance upon third-party providers of cloud-based infrastructure to host our software solutions, the uncertainties inherent in drug development and commercialization, uncertainties associated with the regulatory review of clinical trials and applications for marketing approvals, the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations or the operations of third parties we rely on, as well as the other risks and uncertainties identified under the caption "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, including the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 12, 2021, as well as future filings and reports by us. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof. Except as required by law, we undertake no duty or obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events, changes in expectations or otherwise.