Pressroom & News

Formation Bio CEO Ben Liu is convinced that drug discovery isn’t the bottleneck in getting medicines to market—it’s going through clinical trials. Now he’s raised some $615 million from top investors to buy stalled drugs and use AI to stress test them faster.

We hear a lot about how AI is accelerating drug discovery. But the number of drugs approved by the FDA has remained constant through the AI revolution, at around 50 per year. “The biggest problem in bringing new medicine to patients hasn't been drug discovery for a long time,” says Ben Liu, the founder and CEO of Formation Bio, an AI company working in the biotech space.

Mikael Dolsten has spent decades pushing the boundaries of science, medicine, and technology—overseeing the development of 35+ approved medicines and vaccines and helping lead Pfizer’s historic COVID-19 response. Now, he brings that expertise to Formation Bio.

The new round was led by a16z, with significant participation from Sanofi. Formation Bio will use the funds to grow its drug pipeline and continue to expand its tech and AI platform.

The three companies are collaborating to build AI-powered software to accelerate drug development and bring new medicines to patients more efficiently. The three teams will bring together data, software and tuned models to develop custom, purpose-built solutions across the drug development lifecycle.

Formation Bio (formerly known as TrialSpark) licenses sprifermin, an investigational first-in-class disease modifying treatment for osteoarthritis, from Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and announces formation of High Line Bio.

Formation Bio (formerly known as TrialSpark) announces acquisition of a clinical-stage immunodermatology portfolio and formation of Libertas Bio.