Five Questions With a16z’s Vijay Pande on AI and Making New Drugs
Summary
Another startup looking to take advantage of those improvements, South San Francisco-based Genesis Therapeutics, has scored $4.1 million in seed funding and publicly joined the growing fray of biotechs with grand ambitions of disrupting the slow, costly process of discovering and developing new medicines. The technology that underpins the company was invented in the Stanford University lab of a16z general partner Vijay Pande, who joined the firm in 2015 to lead its debut $200 million biotech fund. Since then the firm has invested in AI drug development outfits including Erasca, Insitro, and TwoXar, and raised $450 million for a second bio fund. Pande recently talked with Xconomy about how AI will impact drug development, what differentiates Genesis, and why biotechs need to adopt a “portfolio mindset.” The conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. The part I think really differentiated Evan’s approach here was getting a really great drug hunter like [acting Chief Scientific Officer] Dr. [Peppi] Prasit involved very early.
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