Abstract:
Former OpenAI chief product officer and scientific team leader Kevin Weir founded Warp Sciences with the goal of introducing artificial intelligence and robots into drug development laboratories to help biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies manufacture and test candidate compounds faster. Weill announced that the company has completed US$215 million in financing, led by Lightspeed; the company's valuation is said to have reached US$865 million. IVP, Premji Invest, Mayfield, Lux Capital and Menlo Ventures also participated in the investment.
Warp Sciences plans to establish a chemical contract research organization in the United States to provide molecular synthesis and testing services to drug development teams. The company's first phase focuses on "optimized analog synthesis of lead compounds," which means creating different variants around potential molecules, and then comparing their properties through experiments to help researchers screen candidate drugs that are more suitable for continued development. Customers decide which molecules to study and retain control of drug programs; Warp does not plan to develop its own drug pipeline, the company said.
To train robots to complete laboratory work, chemical researchers will wear camera equipment and sensing gloves to demonstrate and record experimental operations. The company hopes to gradually use robots to perform these tasks so that the laboratory can continue to operate; the data generated by each round of experiments will be used to improve the AI model and subsequent experimental plans, forming a cycle of "design, execution, analysis, and redesign." The degree of automation and actual efficiency still need to be built and verified by the company.
The startup's business also targets the U.S. biotech industry's reliance on overseas R&D services. In drug research and development, batch synthesis of thousands of molecular variants is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process, and related work has long been undertaken by contract research institutions in China and other places. Warp hopes to provide alternative services in the United States, reduce geopolitical risks in the supply chain, and respond to pharmaceutical companies' concerns about intellectual property protection.
Warp Sciences was co-founded by Weill with three co-founders: Saul Reisberg, former head of medicinal chemistry at Terremoto Biosciences, Manohar Paluri, co-founder and former executive of FAIR, Meta artificial intelligence research laboratory, and DJ Patil, formerly the chief data scientist of the United States. The company said the team will combine experience in AI, robotics and medicinal chemistry to build local laboratory infrastructure so that physical experimental data can in turn promote AI-assisted drug research and development.
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