Sibylla Biotech Srl raised €23 million (US$22.9 million) in series A funding to progress its two lead programs in targeted protein degradation, to broaden its pipeline, and to enhance its computationally intensive discovery platform. The company is expanding the druggable proteome in a highly original fashion. It applies mathematical techniques originally developed in theoretical physics to simulating the intermediate folding states of target proteins that have no obvious drug-binding pockets. These may well have transient structures that a small molecule can bind. So instead of drugging the native, biologically active molecule, it aims to develop small-molecule drugs that lock them into an intermediate state. They are then eliminated by the usual protein degradation pathways that operate within cells.