NeuroX1 🧬

AI Drug Discovery

March 12, 2024

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

  • Industry: Biotech

  • Headquarters: Austin, TX

  • Year founded: 2021

  • Employee count: 10

  • Investors: Drive Capital, Trousdale Partners, Vibe Capital, Syntax Ventures, Next Sequence VC, Techstars

  • Amount raised: $2.12 million

  • Currently raising: $2 million Seed extension

  • 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.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

  • Crafting your startup’s cash management strategy? 

  • First, divide your funds into three categories: liquid, short-term, and strategic. 

  • From there, it’s about optimizing for risk and yield according to those time horizons. 

  • But how much should you put in each category?

Due Diligence

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.

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Founder Profile

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Comps

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.

Event Board

  • Thanks to all of you who came out to our event last night. More to come…

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Last Week Today

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✍️ Written by Brett