Biotech AI startup Unlearn contributes $15mn and OpenAI CTO to board

CIOTechOutlook Team | Tuesday, 21 March 2023, 12:32 IST

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In order to increase partnerships and hasten regulatory approval, AI, which has developed a machine learning platform that produces "digital twin" profiles of patients participating in clinical trials, has secured $15 million, the company added. The venture was valued at $265 million thanks to the financing from Radical Ventures and Wittington Ventures, the business claimed.
 
Mira Murati, chief technology officer at Microsoft-backed OpenAI, is joining the startup's board. "The team at Unlearn is working on applications of AI that have incredible potential to revolutionise healthcare, diagnostics and treatment," Murati.
 
Unlearn employs generative AI, which is known for producing material like language, graphics, and even computer code, to create digital twins to expedite clinical drug trials.
 
If it is successful, Unlearn's software may enable medication developers to minimise expenses by reducing the number of participants required for clinical studies by substituting patients for those who receive a placebo. 
 
After receiving authorisation from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in September to use its AI-driven approach for carrying out smaller and quicker clinical trials and concluding multiple multi-million dollar agreements with pharmaceutical firms, including Merck, Unlearn raised the money. Unlearn, a San Francisco-based company, concentrates on a relatively new usage of generative AI. Via applications like OpenAI's popular chatbot ChatGPT, the technique where AI learns how to execute actions from historical data has gained widespread recognition. Unlearn's platform computes a twin for each patient participating in a clinical trial using patient data from research studies and uses these twins to populate the control arm of the study.
 
With a focus on Phase III clinical trials, Charles Fisher, chief executive at Unlearn said gaining approvals from regulators including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is critical to commercializing the technology to global drugmakers. "For us the big priority on the regulatory front is to partner with drugmakers to run trials and set a precedent," said Fisher.
 
Insight Partners, 8VC, and Mubadala Ventures are a few of the investors who contributed to Unlearn's $85 million total funding.
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