San Francisco-based biotech AI startup Unlearn.AI has successfully raised $15 million to further expand its partnerships and accelerate regulatory approval. The company, which employs machine learning to create “digital twin” profiles of patients in clinical trials, has secured investment from Radical Ventures and Wittington Ventures, valuing the startup at $265 million.
Mira Murati, the chief technology officer at Microsoft-backed OpenAI, will be joining Unlearn’s board. Murati expressed enthusiasm for Unlearn’s work, stating that their applications of AI hold incredible potential for revolutionizing healthcare, diagnostics, and treatment.
Unlearn’s innovative use of generative AI focuses on accelerating clinical drug trials through the creation of digital twins using neural networks. This approach could potentially lower drug development costs by reducing the number of enrollments needed for clinical trials and replacing patients who receive a placebo.
Following the approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in September, Unlearn has forged several multi-million-dollar deals with major pharmaceutical companies, including Merck. The EMA has authorized Unlearn’s AI-driven method for conducting smaller, faster clinical trials.
By gathering patient data from research studies, Unlearn’s platform computes a digital twin for each patient in a clinical trial. It uses these twins to populate the control arm of the research. The startup’s focus on Phase III clinical trials emphasizes the importance of gaining approval from regulators like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the commercialization of this technology to global drugmakers. Unlearn CEO Charles Fisher highlighted the significance of partnering with drugmakers to run trials and set a precedent.
To date, Unlearn has raised $85 million from investors such as Insight Partners, 8VC, and Mubadala Ventures.
