Galux Secures $29M to Advance AI-Driven Protein Design for New Medicines

SEOUL, South Korea – February 09, 2026 – By Christine Carter

South Korean biotech pioneer Galux has successfully closed a $29 million (KRW 42 billion) Series B financing round, signaling strong investor confidence in its mission to revolutionize drug discovery through artificial intelligence. The funding brings the company’s total capital raised to $47 million and will be used to enhance its AI platform, expand R&D infrastructure, and accelerate the development of new protein-based therapeutics.

The financing round saw participation from a mix of new and existing investors, including InterVest, DAYLI Partners, and PATHWAY Investment, who were joined by newcomers Yuanta Investment, Korea Development Bank (KDB), SL Investment, and Mirae Asset Securities, among others. The significant influx of capital underscores the growing conviction that AI-driven rational drug design is moving from a theoretical concept to a practical and powerful tool in modern medicine.

“Since our initial seed investment, Galux has consistently demonstrated strong technical depth and disciplined execution,” said Sang-gyun Kim, Ph.D, Executive Managing Director at InterVest. “The company’s capability to build a globally competitive AI platform for de novo protein design strengthens our conviction in its technology and its long-term potential to transform drug discovery.”

The Science Behind the Investment

At the heart of Galux’s strategy is its proprietary AI platform, GaluxDesign. The platform specializes in de novo protein design, one of the most technically demanding frontiers in biotechnology, which involves creating entirely new proteins from scratch rather than modifying existing ones. This is particularly challenging for complex molecules like antibodies.

What sets GaluxDesign apart is its integration of deep-learning models with the fundamental physical principles of protein folding and molecular interaction. This dual approach allows the platform to design therapeutic proteins with a high degree of precision. The company has provided compelling evidence of its platform's accuracy, revealing that an AI-designed antibody's structure was highly consistent with its experimentally determined cryo-EM structure, showing a remarkable interface RMSD (root-mean-square deviation) of just 1.1 Å. This demonstrates the platform’s ability to achieve atomic-level precision.

Further validating its technology, Galux has reported a success rate of over 30% in de novo multitarget antibody design, a significant achievement that can slash the typical antibody discovery timeline from over a year to less than a month. The platform has successfully generated high-affinity antibodies for a range of therapeutic targets, including challenging ones like PD-L1 and HER2, and even targets with no previously known antibody complex structure. This tight feedback loop between AI prediction and internal wet-lab experimentation is rapidly improving the platform's reliability and expanding its capabilities to tackle notoriously difficult drug targets like GPCRs and ion channels.

Navigating a Competitive AI Drug Discovery Market

Galux’s funding success comes as the AI drug discovery market is experiencing explosive growth. Industry analysts project the market to expand significantly, with some estimates predicting it will reach nearly $50 billion by 2034. This boom is fueled by the potential for AI to dramatically reduce the time and cost associated with bringing a new drug to market, a process that traditionally takes over a decade and billions of dollars.

Galux is positioning itself as a key player in this competitive landscape, which includes heavily funded ventures like Xaira Therapeutics, backed by $1 billion in committed capital, and Generate Biomedicines. While many companies are leveraging AI, Galux's focus on de novo design and its published, experimentally validated results give it a crucial edge. The ability to design novel molecules that are distinct from existing patented drugs also provides a clear path for creating unique intellectual property.

This funding round not only validates Galux's technological approach but also solidifies its standing as a leading example of South Korea's growing influence in the global biotech sector. The nation is increasingly becoming a hub for deep-tech innovation, and companies like Galux are demonstrating the capacity to compete on a global stage.

From Local Pioneer to Global Contender

Leveraging its technological prowess, Galux has already forged a series of high-profile strategic partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies, translating its platform's potential into tangible commercial collaborations. These partnerships serve as powerful endorsements of the GaluxDesign platform's capabilities.

The company is engaged in a joint development agreement with domestic powerhouse Celltrion to create next-generation multi-specific antibody treatments for autoimmune diseases. In this collaboration, Galux is responsible for the AI-driven design and early validation, while Celltrion will handle clinical development and commercialization. Similarly, a partnership with LG Chem is focused on discovering new cancer drug candidates.

Significantly, Galux has also established a foothold in the global pharmaceutical arena through a research agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim. This collaboration aims to validate the feasibility of the GaluxDesign platform across a selection of targets, marking a critical step in the company's international expansion and its ambition to become a global leader in AI-powered drug discovery.

“Rapidly evolving AI technologies are driving a paradigm shift in drug discovery—from empirical discovery to rational drug design,” said Cha-ok Seok, CEO of Galux and a professor at Seoul National University with over two decades of research in protein modeling. “This funding will accelerate the development of next-generation AI that goes beyond binder design to incorporate functional activity and developability, enabling the creation of more robust and therapeutically viable molecules.” With this new capital, Galux is poised to expand its efforts to unlock new therapeutic opportunities that have long been considered undruggable by conventional methods.