Polaris Quantum

PolarisQB (Polaris Quantum Biotech) is a Durham, NC-based life sciences technology company and the first in the world to develop a drug discovery engine purpose-built for quantum computers. Their flagship platform, Quantum-Aided Drug Design (QuADD), enables computational chemists and drug discovery teams to explore a molecular chemical space of 1030 — more than 20 orders of magnitude larger than the 1010 space accessible through traditional screening methods. By harnessing Quantum Annealing and Quantum Inspired Algorithms available today, PolarisQB makes quantum computing practical for drug design optimization right now, without waiting for future hardware advances.

PolarisQB serves organizations across the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural, and contract research (CRO) sectors, as well as any field involving molecular research. The company was founded on the conviction that finding cures for disease remains an extremely long and expensive undertaking, and that quantum computing represents a genuine leap — not merely an incremental improvement — over conventional drug discovery methods. Their multidisciplinary team combines expertise in biology, chemistry, physics, machine learning, and computer science to fundamentally change how new drugs are developed.

The QuADD Platform

• Explores a chemical space of 1030 molecules in just a few hours, compared to weeks or months with conventional approaches.
• Performs multi-objective optimization at unmatched scale and speed, identifying molecules optimized for specific target properties in a single pass.
• Applicable to any protein target and requires no training data, distinguishing it from AI-only approaches that depend on existing datasets.
• Enables rapid, single-pass optimizations that can cut discovery and optimization timelines by months or even years.
• Free trials of the QuADD platform are available, allowing prospective customers to compare quantum versus classical methods on their own targets.

QuADD Solution Tiers

• QuADD Rapid: Delivers 1,000–5,000 top-quality, lead-like molecules for a target protein binding pocket, providing a broad set of hits for early-stage discovery.
• QuADD Select (Most Popular): Produces 20–200 molecules fully optimized for a specific target protein, ready within 90 days for purchase or synthesis.
• QuADD Collaborate: A joint development engagement focused on co-developing best-fit molecules for new or challenging protein targets, structured as a partnership with PolarisQB's scientific team.

Performance and Competitive Advantages

• A published case study comparing QuADD to traditional Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) demonstrated results in 2 days versus 2 months, with stronger binding affinity, greater molecular diversity, and more drug-like properties.
• PolarisQB has published a manuscript demonstrating the superiority of quantum computing over AI in drug design.
• The platform's quantum approach does not require training data, making it viable for novel or underexplored targets where AI methods lack sufficient historical data.
• Quantum computing solves ultra-large-scale optimization and simulation problems that are too complex for traditional computers, and PolarisQB applies this capability directly to drug design today.

Customers and Collaborations

• Auransa: Collaboration led to rapid identification of viable drug candidates, significantly accelerating research timelines for hard-to-tackle and neglected diseases affecting women's health, according to CEO Pek Lum, Ph.D.
• Allosteric Bioscience: Used PolarisQB's quantum computing and advanced AI technology to explore a previously undefined chemical space, discovering novel molecules for their longevity and aging molecular process program faster than expected, per President and Co-Founder Dr. Arthur Bollon.
• Phoremost: Described the partnership as enabling the full diversity of newly identified disease targets to be matched with the most logical and rapid method of finding small molecule drugs, per CEO Chris Torrance.

Company Background and Vision

• Headquartered at 212 W Main St, Suite 200, Durham, NC 27701.
• Founded with the mission to make drug blueprints for treating all known diseases available faster and more affordably.
• The team spans multiple disciplines — biology, chemistry, physics, machine learning, and computer science — to break conventional barriers in drug discovery.
• Serves pharma, biotech, agriculture, and CRO sectors, with solutions applicable across any molecular research domain.
• Actively publishes research, whitepapers, and webinars, and maintains a growing pipeline of quantum-enhanced drug metabolism and design capabilities, including work on CYP3A4 substrate classification.

PolarisQB represents a new frontier in computational drug discovery, combining the power of quantum computing available today with deep life sciences expertise to help organizations find novel molecular leads faster, more efficiently, and at a scale previously unreachable by any conventional or AI-based screening method.