The company has three drug candidates in its clinical pipeline, including treatments for chronic hand eczema, sensory neuropathy, and knee osteoarthritis. The eczema treatment is the furthest along, having reached phase 3 of testing. The market for AI in drug discovery is expected to be worth $4.9 billion by 2028, with other key players including Xaira, Isomorphic, Insilico, Profluent, Enveda, and Causaly.
Key takeaways:
- Formation Bio, an AI-focused drug discovery startup, has raised $372 million in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, bringing its total raised to $528 million. The funds will be used mainly for partnership acquisition efforts and R&D.
- The company, previously known as TrialSpark, was co-founded by Benjamine Liu and Linhao Zhang in 2016. It licenses drug IP from and co-develops drugs with biotech and pharma companies, and develops these drugs past clinical proof-of-concept.
- Formation is currently deploying AI to streamline clinical trials, including patient recruitment and data management. It also uses AI to provide drug development teams with recommendations for R&D decisions and to better predict drug toxicity, tolerability, and efficacy.
- Last month, Formation announced a collaboration with OpenAI and Sanofi to jointly design and develop customized AI solutions for drug development. The company has three drug candidates in its clinical pipeline, including treatments for chronic hand eczema, sensory neuropathy, and knee osteoarthritis.