Meta-Flux, a Dublin-based biotech startup, has raised €1.8m ($2m) in seed funding to expand its AI platform for preclinical drug development.
The company combines data from genes, proteins, and metabolic pathways, applying biological reasoning with AI to reveal how biological systems function as a whole.
Meta-Flux said its platform acts as an "AI biologist" that helps drug developers discover better treatments faster, avoid costly dead ends, and bring medicines to patients sooner.
The company was co-founded by biochemist Lee Sherlock and AI engineer Brendan Martin after losing close family members to lung cancer.
"Bringing a new drug to market is slow, expensive, and uncertain," Mr Sherlock said.
"Too often, promising drugs fail because researchers can't clearly predict how they’ll behave."
"A lot of drugs end up failing because they have the wrong application."
"Our goal isn’t just to get more drugs to market, but to make sure the ones that do actually help the right people."
"Once you have that drug and once you have the target, we help you figure out what application you should go after, what particular type of disease, what subtype of that disease, and what patients you’re going to be treating," he added.
The funding round includes backing from senior executives at Pfizer, Merck, and Gilead Sciences, along with technology leaders from Google, Amazon, and Indeed.
Meta-Flux recently completed Techstars Chicago (powered by JP Morgan), MassBio DRIVE in Boston, and the NDRC Accelerator at Dogpatch Labs in Dublin, programmes that connect emerging techbio companies with pharma mentors and investors.
Meta-Flux is now building out its team to support pharmaceutical collaborations across the EU and the US.
