News and trends on TechBio
News and trends on TechBio
Un-locking data to transform biology
Some random news and trends on TechBio
⚙️ Imagene AI—founded in 2020 with a clear mission to empower physicians with immediate oncology intelligence to facilitate optimal treatment for more cancer patients—leverages AI to profile within minutes a broad range of cancer biomarkers from the biopsy image alone. On September 6, 2023, Imagene announced the release of LungOI™, the world's first 🥇 AI-based Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) molecular panel, identifying actionable alterations from the biopsy image alone within minutes.
LungOI—an AI-powered laboratory-developed test compatible with various imaging devices, staining protocols and diverse populations—is a multi-gene NSCLC biomarker panel including alterations in the genes EGFR, ALK, ROS1, RET, NTRK1/2/3, ERBB2, BRAF, MET and KRAS demonstrating high performance levels. For example, inference of EGFR mutations in high confidence cases, showed 90% sensitivity and 92% specificity, and for ALK fusions the levels were 97% and 96% respectively. Imagene's technology already had a significant impact on treatment initiation and avoiding brain radiation in lung cancer patients as demonstrated in a recently published case report in the Journal of Clinical Pathology, as part of a clinical study.
Imagene AI has raised a total of $21.5M. in funding over 2 rounds, and is based in Israel and US.
For more about cancer and AI: Cancer in the time of artificial intelligence and Cancer in the time of artificial intelligence/2nd part.
⚙️ Benchling is a cloud R&D developer for early drug development efforts as well as programs tailored for RNA-based therapeutics. They offer:
Benchling Bioresearch that gives teams a shared space to design and manage experiments, complex biomolecules, workflows, and results end-to-end.
Benchling Bioprocess is the only cloud-native solution for end-to-end, high-throughput process development. It helps teams reach milestones faster while increasing operational efficiency and simplifying technology transfers into manufacturing (Available Spring 2024). And
Benchling In Vivo, to manage in vivo studies with modern software designed for data capture, collaboration and insights. This flexible platform allows teams to save time and generate accurate in vivo study data as part of your connected R&D.
In July 2023, Climax Foods—a food-tech company using data science and ML to create animal-free products from plants—has gained a competitive edge in the next-generation foods space by embracing data science and relying on Benchling as its central source of truth for R&D data, collaboration and insights.
According to Benchling, more than 200,000 scientists at over 600 companies and 7,000 research institutions have adopted its cloud-based software tools. Benchling has raised a total of $411.9M in funding over 9 rounds, at a $6.1 billion valuation 💰.
For more about ADMET and AI: AI-Guided Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion, and Toxicity (ADMET) Prediction and AI Startups for ADMET Prediction.
⚙️ Synthace is offering Antha, a cloud-based software platform (SaaS) for automating and improving the success rate of biological processes, by spreading biological information in a repeatable way, linking lab equipment, protocols and processes, thereby allowing vast and speedy development, enhancing productivity. In 2022, UCL selected Synthace to help make digital, cloud-based lab work a reality, and in 2021 Synthace announced it raised $35M in Series C funding, to fuel commercial and go-to-market growth.
Then in May 2023, the large language model ChatGPT was integrated into Synthace’s platform in order to design protocols for biology experiments and automate lab work. On September 20, 2023, Synthace released a comprehensive analyst report titled “Lab automation & experimentation in life science R&D 2023-2024” shedding light on the industry challenges faced by researchers and highlighting opportunities for improvement. The report can be downloaded here 📩, highlighting challenges across 4 key themes:
Data, and how it helps or hinders effective decision making,
Automation, and how it still represents a major hurdle for many teams,
Experimentation, and its burden on the individual scientist, and
People, and how they are stretched too thin and under-supported.
Synthace has raised a total of $81M in funding over 13 rounds.
For more about data mining and AI: Biomedical data mining: AI/ML tools and startups and Biomedical data mining: AI/ML tools and startups (2nd part).
⚙️ Officinae Bio in Venice Italy integrates purpose-built experimental protocols, proprietary datasets and algorithms to accelerate product design and development, from personalized cell therapies to precision fermentation. For example, Officinae Bio delivers ready-to-use, sequence-perfect, full-length custom vectors that can be used straightaway in downstream applications, and offers Adaptive Design of Experiments, through sequential optimization of experimental results to design what experiments to run next and converge faster to the optima. So far they have raised €26,6M.
⚙️ PipeBio is an integrated cloud-based platform for biologics discovery that allows wet lab scientists to easily analyze antibody and peptide sequences with functional assay data and bioinformaticians to deploy their own code and run workflows. By using PipeBio you can configure standard analysis workflows and create SOPs with the range bioinformatics tools on PipeBio for
Antibody sequence analysis and discovery
Antibody engineering
Short peptide discovery
NGS, Sanger, PacBio and single cell sequence analysis.
PipeBio funded by Acequia Capital (AceCap), Y Combinator and byFounders is rapidly growing with presence in Europe and the Americas.
⚙️ Octant Bio in California is a therapeutics company with a platform of four components enabling experiments at the massive scale of computational simulations but with gold-standard real-life experiments in human cells (high throughput synthetic biology, high throughput chemistry, multiplexed assay platform and computation) to investigate drugs, proteins and signaling pathways at unprecedented scales.
The Octant Navigator platform is pioneering new multi-target therapies for rare diseases that are caused by an array of mutations, rather than one predominant mutation (sometimes described as a “founder effect”). Their approach is called Broad Target Scanning (BTS), and is the process by which they screen molecules for their ability to exert drug-like effects on tens to hundreds of targets simultaneously. In the case of rare diseases, rather than carrying out one experiment for each variant of a causal gene in series, they examine interactions between compounds and variants in parallel.
Octant was co-founded by Sri Kosuri—a former UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry—and Ramsey Homsany—a veteran of Google and Dropbox. They are building the Octant Navigator platform to advance drug discovery by driving high throughput chemistries through engineered cellular systems, to scale up multiplexing capabilities for assay optimization, broad target screening and deep mutational scanning. In April 2022, Octant secured $80M in a series B round ($115M in total) that included Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS).
For more about screening and AI: How AI is Going to Change Drug Screening Forever.
⚙️ Nucleate is a student-led 👩🎓👨🎓 organization that represents the largest global community of bio-innovators. Nucleate was founded at Harvard and MIT in 2018 and quickly grew to be the world’s leading bio-entrepreneurship community empowering students to become the next generation of biotech leaders while backed by Genentech, Ely Lilly, Alnylam and Schmidt Futures.
For example, Activator is a six-month, equity-free cohort program designed for academic biotech founders that has served more than 100 life sciences ventures, that have raised over $190M in venture funding. Participating teams refine their scientific discoveries into biotech venture theses and train under Nucleate's unparalleled network, rigorous curriculum, funded fellowships, legal support and highly subsidized perks. Activator culminates in a final pitch showcase before world-renowned judges. For Activator 2024: apply here.
In particular, Nucleate works with emerging companies who leverage life sciences, and some examples of AI life science companies are (Stage Incubator/Accelerator):
Abacus Bio (Platform Product), launched in 2022 in Baltimore, building a DL platform for rapid development of next-generation antibody therapeutics.
Team Members: Jeffrey Ruffolo, Timothy Aikin.
Ascent Bio, launched 2022 in New haven, has PlatformA a robust AI-based platform for the generation and highly controlled optimization of diverse classes of therapeutics.
Coral Therapeutics, launched in 2022 in Boston, is developing a target discovery platform combining lung-organoids with graph-based AI algorithms to predict and experimentally validate target candidates, initially working in lung cancer.
Graph Bio, launched 2022 in Bay area, is using AI applications to identify suitable patients for clinical trials based on health records.
Neurocure, launched in 2022, is developing DANNCE an AI platform for quantifying behavior and detecting neurological movement disorders in humans and animals using scalable 3D movement analysis. Their high throughput and data driven approach will allow for more objective diagnosis of disease, earlier detection of disease, evaluating the efficacy of pharmacological agents, and the ability to quantify a subject’s response to treatment.
Paracyte Bio, in Boston launched in 2022, is an immunomodulatory therapeutic platform selecting candidates from AI-predicted libraries with high-throughput screens, initially targeting complement inhibitors and cytokine binding proteins.
Immunobac Therapeutics, in Boston launched in 2022, has an antibacterial target identification platform leveraging transposon library screening and ML methods to inform complement-directed host-informed therapies (i.e. targeted antibodies).
Team Members: Bharathi Sundaresh.
PulseFlex, launched 2022 in Boston, offers a wearable, low-power blood pressure monitor using a piezoelectric nanofiber array for pressure sensing and a ML algorithm for analysis of the spatial-temporal waveforms of a near-surface artery.
INIA Biosciences, launched 2022 in Boston, has an ultrasound device for modulating inflammation paired with a biomarker-based monitoring system feeding an AI-driven treatment optimization algorithm. Initially targeting organ rejection and chronic inflammatory disease.
⚙️ First Derivative is a leader in the data-driven digital revolution and has a fully dedicated Capital Markets consulting team in the world. Their Engineering Services are designed to assist clients by accelerating the way they collect, record and consume data, in order to enable their transformation into fully data-driven organizations. By developing solutions for real-time analytics and decisioning—on premise, on cloud, as well as hybrid multi-cloud strategies and implementation—they offer the fastest and smartest solutions to empower every decision (DataOps, Data Governance, Market Data Infrastructure, Data Architecture, Data Engineering, KX Services, Data Insight and Data Reporting).
⚙️ Pace Ventures is a Venture capital fund in Berlin 🇩🇪 led by Marius Swart investing in founders building category-defining climate and health companies. They invest as co-lead or follower investors in health-tech and climate-tech companies predominantly across Europe and the US at Pre-seed and Seed stage. They have invested at the following health companies:
CelerisTx exploiting cutting-edge ML to design PICs™ or Proximity-inducing compounds, which are a novel class of therapeutic modalities able to hijack naturally occurring biological machines. PICs allow us to modulate the activity of processes like autophagy, folding via chaperones, lysosomal and ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis and hence provide unprecedented potential to further expand therapeutic horizons.
Their platform Celeris One exploits the potential of PICs™ with accurate predictions of biomolecular interactions and the expansion of chemical space. Moreover, Celeris One has three modules: Xanthos the platform’s design engine, Hephaistos the platform’s synthesis engine and Hades the platform’s biological information engine.
By using the Xanthos platform for design, they start with a protein target sequence, determine 3D structures, predict ligand binding, generate linkers, predict ternary complexes and refine proximity-inducing compounds selection through several layers of filters including molecular dynamics and QSAR. Last year, Celeris Therapeutics and Boehringer Ingelheim announced a collaboration to develop next-generation targeted protein degraders. Celeris Therapeutics raised a total of $18.09M.
For more about QSAR and AI: AI/ML tools for planning and execution of chemical synthesis and AI/ML chemical synthesis startups.
Neurable is harnessing the power of the mind using brain-computer interface technology fit for every-day use. Born out of the University of Michigan’s Direct-Brain Interface Laboratory (UM-DBI), Neurable is developing headphones that can track brain signals, detecting when the wearer is in a state of deep focus, or when their focus is slipping. By recording brain activity from around the ear area and then by using AI, Neurable is able to boost that signal so that they can pick up a lot of the core of responses across our brain. The idea behind these headphones is to give people better knowledge of their own state of focus and mental fatigue, and help users decide when to take a break.
Neurable has raised a total funding of $14.1M over 8 rounds from 22 investors.
Virtonomy innovating digital patient twins and virtual patient simulations for the development of medical devices. Virtonomy introduced v-Patients, enabling medical device developers to perform development and testing in a virtual environment, thereby accelerating development, reducing risks, expenses and regulatory burden. Their end-to-end digital twin and simulation solution is based on an ever-expanding database of real clinical data to reflect anatomical variability, demographic diversity and pathological conditions.
v-Patients supports the full product life cycle of medical device development, from concept phase to regulatory reporting and clinical practice (Select virtual patient population, Advanced Statistical Shape Models, Advanced Anatomical Simulations and Regulatory Services & Consultation).
In April 12, 2023, Accenture made a strategic investment, through Accenture Ventures, in Virtonomy, to help Virtonomy further extend its capabilities to medical technology (MedTech) companies across the globe and power the future of medical device design.
For more about clinical trials and AI: Using AI to improve efficiency and effectiveness during clinical trials.
⚙️ Dimension is a first-of-its-kind firm partnering with founders at the interface of technology and life sciences to transform the trajectory of life on earth. Founded in March 2022, by three VCs Zavain Dar, Adam Goulburn and Nan Li who previously worked at Lux Capital and Obvious Ventures, Dimension has raised $350M to create and back between 20 to 25 startups. Some of those startups will be science companies like:
Automata is a next-generation lab automation and data management company. The Automata LINQ bench is the next-generation, automation-enabled laboratory bench system that can fully automate workflows end to end. It does this by robotically and digitally connecting instruments and automating the transfer of labware. In October 2023, Automata raised $40M and the round was led by Dimension.
Enveda Biosciences is unlocking the planet's chemistry to discover next-generation therapies. Using breakthroughs in ML, metabolomics, and robotics, their platform indexes nature’s untapped chemical space for new drug discovery.
On December 21, 2022, Enveda Biosciences announced that it had closed a $68M equity and debt financing and Dimension led the Series B round.
Lamin is an open-source software infrastructure for the modern lab (open-source Python framework).
Kaleidoscope Bio is a collaborative, cloud-based research platform for organizing and tracking scientific activities, to supercharge how scientific teams collaborate, manage experiments and track decision-making.
On September 28, 2022, Kaleidoscope announced the completion of a $6M seed financing round, co-led by Hummingbird Ventures and Dimension.
⚙️ Backed VC is a human-centric venture capital fund, investing in exceptional founders at Seed in Europe. Through their extensive founder support platform and active portfolio community they've helped so far 110+ entrepreneurs and have successfully scaled 60+ companies across Europe. Managed by Alex Brunicki, Andre De Haes and Tom Hopkins, Backed VC has invested so far in the following biotech utilizing AI in their process:
Ladder Therapeutics (Toronto Canada, 2022) now Serna Bio is a Y-Combinator-backed company, on a mission to shine a light on the dark genome. They’re working at the intersection of ML, novel chemistry and RNA biology. Serna bio is collaborating with NCI to publish the world’s largest dataset of small molecule RNA binders. Serna was founded by Dr. Rabia Khan from Pakistan—ex Managing Director of Discovery Sciences at Sensyne Health Plc (now: Arcturis)—
and its scientific officer is Dr. Danny Incarnato with a PhD in molecular biotechnologies from the University of Siena (Italy) and an expert in RNA structure and computational biology. Dr. Incarnato is also leading research in RNA structure at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands (INCARNATO lab).
Nuntius Therapeutics (UK, US) is dedicated to currently incurable rare diseases, delivering large genetic payloads into the correct cells, enabling physicians to treat their patients with efficient therapies. They use cell-specific nanocarriers to develop mRNA and gene editing therapies for currently incurable diseases.
Ochre Bio is a deep phenotyping company developing RNA therapies for chronic liver disease. Named a top European startup to watch by Sifted, in October 10, 2022 Ochre Bio successfully closed $30M in Series A financing. The investor syndicate included investors Khosla Ventures, Hermes-Epitek, Backed VC, LifeForce Capital, Selvedge, AixThera, LifeLink, EIT and individual investors, Alice Zhang, CEO of Verge Genomics, Kristen Fortney, CEO of BioAge, and Marty Chavez, Chairman of Recursion Pharmaceuticals. For more Deep Phenotyping at Scale.
LabGenius is a biopharmaceutical company in London, UK developing protein therapeutics using a ML-driven evolution engine. Its protein engineering platform (EVA™) integrates several bleeding-edge technologies from the fields of ML, synthetic biology and robotics.
Two months ago, LabGenius announced that its multi-year research collaboration with Sanofi had positive results in the therapeutic development of NANOBODY® heavy chain variable domains. In particular, LabGenius confirmed that the 10 most improved NANOBODY® variants demonstrated up to a 7-fold improvement in the desired property of interest, whilst maintaining the potency of the starting molecule.
Rahko’s co-founder and former VP of AI at Odyssey Therapeutics Dr. Leonard Wossnig will lead the technical growth of LabGenius’ ML-driven drug discovery platform.
Until next time ⛄,