NeuroX1
Setting the Scene
Traditional drug discovery methods are slow, expensive, and have high failure rates.
The average drug discovery takes 10-15 years.
The economic burden exceeds more than $655B annually.
The failure rate of drugs for neurodegenerative diseases is about 99%.
This week’s company leverages AI to identify targets of neurological diseases and generate drug candidates.
In a Sentence
NeuroX1 utilizes AI to identify drivers of neurological diseases to improve the drug discovery process.
Drivers: The platform analyzes biological data to uncover underlying causes behind brain diseases.
Discovery: NeuroX1 designs computational compounds, potentially speeding up the time consuming process of drug discovery.
Bulleted Version:
- Similar to how Waze analyzes traffic for route optimization, NeuroX1 analyzes biochemical data to find the quickest route to drug discovery.
The Basics
- Headquarters: Austin, TX
- Employee Count: 10
- Investors:
Drive Capital, Trousdale Partners, Vibe Capital, Syntax Ventures, Next Sequence VC, Techstars
- Funding amount: $2.12 million
- Business model: B2B; Upfront payment for early discovery and then progressively increasing milestones as drug assets progress through each phase of clinical development, plus a royalty if approved.
- Early traction: 3 industry co-development partnerships and 2 academic collaborations.
Due Dilligence
WHAT WE LIKE
Market Opportunity: The neurological disorder drugs market is expected to grow nearly 5% annually due to the rising prevalence of diseases among aging populations and demand for treatments.
Drug Discovery: NeuroX1's use of generative chemistry dramatically shortens the time and reduces the cost needed to find new drugs, representing a major leap forward in medicine development.
Innovative Business Model: The company’s B2B model, which combines upfront payments with milestones and royalties, aligns incentives across the drug development process while fostering innovation.
POTENTIAL RISKS
AI Hallucinations: Like other advanced algorithms, NeuroX1’s platform might generate chemically valid but biologically unproven structures, potentially leading to redirected research paths and careful client expectation management.
Non-Recurring Revenue: While NeuroX1 has an innovative monetization model, its dependence on performance could delay unrealized annualized revenue.
Algorithm Overlap: If NeuroX1's AI learns and adapts from multiple lab projects simultaneously, there's a risk that one project's discovery process could inadvertently influence another's, diluting the exclusive value of expensive, proprietary research for organizations.
Founder Profile
Max Dordevic, CEO: Former CEO of Veritas Innovation and life science researcher.
Lucas Myers, CTO: Software engineer with a background in applied math, healthcare data pipelines, infrastructure, and product management.
Conner Myers, PhD, CIO: Physicist and high-performance computing expert, specialized in GPU acceleration of physics simulations at Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Labs.
Comps
Cradle: Backed by Kindred Capital, Index Ventures, and others.
CHARM Therapeutics: Backed by NVentures, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, F-Prime Capital, and others.
Aquemia: Backed by Wendel Growth, Bpifrance, Eurazeo, and others.
Pangea Botanica: Backed by No Label Ventures, Seaside Ventures, Kadmos Kapital, and others.
Why NeuroX1
By slashing costs, speeding up development, and boosting the success rate of finding new treatments for brain disorders, NeuroX1 could be the necessary cure for the pharmaceutical industry.