Profluent, backed by VC firms including Spark Capital and Insight Partners, is focusing on upgrading its AI models and acquiring customers and partners. The company faces competition from firms like EvolutionaryScale and Basecamp Research, which are also developing protein-generating models. Madani believes Profluent's approach could significantly reduce the time and cost typically required to develop a treatment, moving from accidental discovery to intentional design of biological solutions.
Key takeaways:
- Ali Madani, one of the researchers behind Salesforce's ProGen project, has launched a company called Profluent to bring protein-generating technology to pharmaceutical companies. The technology uses generative AI to design proteins, potentially revolutionizing drug development.
- Profluent is applying this technology to gene editing, aiming to create custom-designed gene editors for each patient. The company is training AI models on massive data sets of over 40 billion protein sequences to create new and fine-tune existing gene-editing and protein-producing systems.
- Instead of developing treatments itself, Profluent plans to collaborate with outside partners to create "genetic medicines". This approach could significantly reduce the time and cost typically required to develop a treatment, which currently averages 10-15 years and several hundred million to $2.8 billion.
- Profluent recently raised $35 million in funding from investors including Spark Capital, Insight Partners, Air Street Capital, AIX Ventures, and Convergent Ventures. The company's immediate focus is on upgrading its AI models and acquiring customers and partners.