Using AI for drug development, Causaly raises $60M

The company has now raised $93M in total

Developing a new drug is a long process, typically taking over a decade, and it's expensive as well, often costing more than $2 billion. It can involve extensive research, development, and rigorous clinical trials. But the people who have diseases such as Parkinson’s, lung cancer or multiple sclerosis cannot wait that long, meaning there's real urgency to expedite this process.

That's where Causaly comes in: the company is using artificial intelligence for biomedical research. It works with Life Sciences research organizations to help them find, analyze, and apply their data in drug discovery and development.

On Thursday the company announced a $60 million Series B funding led by ICONIQ Growth, with participation from Index Ventures, Marathon Venture Capital, EBRD, Pentech Ventures and Visionaries Club. The round also includes strategic individuals uch as Alex Gorsky, former Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, and Olivier Pomel, CEO and co-Founder of Datadog. This latest investment brings Causaly's total funding raised to $93 million.

The company's main product, Causaly Cloud, was built to accelerate drug discovery projects. They can use it to get insights, using natural language search to explore disease biology and underlying mechanisms, and to access supporting evidence that includes over 35 million abstracts, over 5 million full text papers, and over 400,000 clinical trials.

It also allows them visualize complex data as interactive networks, timelines or venn diagrams to explore connections, identify novel insights, and conduct comparative analyses. Users can also use Causaly Cloud to collaborate with their teams on projects using Workspaces to capture, discuss, and generate findings. Finally, they have access to scientific support from a global team of dedicated Causaly Science Liaisons.

As a result, the company has shown a 10x productivity gain, novel discoveries, and ultimately, a higher success rate of preclinical programs.

The latest round comes after the company recently tripled revenue and customers, now serving 12 of the top 20 pharma companies. Its customers include Gilead, Novo Nordisk, Regeneron, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

The company says the new funding will be utilized to extend Causaly’s product lead and expand commercial relationships, enabling breakthrough therapeutic innovations faster than ever before.  

“Recent advances in AI open completely new possibilities, and there is a great need for transparent AI systems that science leaders can trust,” Yiannis Kiachopoulos, co-founder and CEO of Causaly, said in a statement.

“Knowledge is the lifeblood of research organizations, and we are committed to our mission to make it discoverable, working with our customers to make sense of their scientific data and apply insights to enable evidence-driven decisions.”

(Image source: causaly.com)