Manas AI, an artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery startup, has secured $24.6 million in funding led by General Catalyst, with participation from Greylock and strategic investors in life sciences and technology sectors.
The company was co-founded by Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, and Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, a renowned oncologist and author. Through its strategic partnership with Microsoft, Manas AI leverages the Azure cloud computing platform to perform molecular docking at speeds 100 times faster than traditional systems.
Ken Frazier, former chairman and CEO of Merck and current chairman of health assurance initiatives at General Catalyst, emphasized the investment’s strategic importance: “As a former CEO in the biopharma industry, I recognize the potential of Manas AI to compress drug discovery timelines while increasing the likelihood of clinical trial success.”
The startup has assembled an impressive scientific advisory board, including five members of the National Academy of Sciences and four members of the National Academy of Medicine. Notable advisors include Dr. Lew Cantley of Harvard University, discoverer of PI3K and PTEN, and Dr. Craig Mello of UMass Chan Medical School, a 2006 Nobel Laureate in Medicine.
Dr. Mukherjee stated that the funding will accelerate the company’s AI platform development and advance its drug candidate pipeline, with an initial focus on aggressive cancers such as triple-negative breast cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma. The company aims to leverage its proprietary AI filters and libraries to identify high-potential therapeutic candidates more efficiently than traditional methods.
“By combining our AI technology with a world-class research team, we’re positioned to develop treatments for diseases that were previously considered unreachable,” Dr. Mukherjee added, highlighting the company’s mission to transform the traditional drug discovery model.
The investment comes at a time when AI-driven drug discovery is gaining significant attention from both pharmaceutical companies and investors. Manas AI’s approach, which integrates generative computational chemistry with advanced molecular docking and cutting-edge biology, represents a comprehensive attempt to streamline the therapeutic development pipeline from target identification to clinical trials.
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