Backed by $4.5M raise, BioPhy is using AI to predict successful clinical trials

It started in a bowling alley.

Dave Latshaw, cofounder and CEO of artificial intelligence company BioPhy, said the origin story of his company goes back to a casual night of bowling in 2019 where he was trying to get to know fellow Wharton School classmates. The former drug development lead was seeking an MBA to find a better way to bridge the gap between business and science.

“I had some theses around being able to quantify the feasibility of science and clinical trials with … more numerical metrics,” Latshaw said, as opposed to what researchers typically do “when they’re evaluating the feasibility of a drug or something like that, where it’s much more qualitative and subjective analysis.”

While bowling, he met his cofounder, Steven Truong, who was thinking of a better way to invest in life sciences companies and promote their work. With Daniel Sciubba, they started BioPhy, an AI company that provides quantitative metrics about what drugs and clinical trials would succeed.

In the clinical trials space, the main use of AI has been identifying and recruiting the best patients for trials, said Latshaw, who has previously led flagship programs for Johnson & Johnson’s AI-focused advanced technologies work. But BioPhy is using AI to evaluate the progress of ongoing clinical trials.

Center City-based BioPhy has two products. BioLogicAI predicts how feasible it is for a drug to be successful or predicts the outcomes for a clinical trial. BioPhyRx is a generative AI system that accelerates the process of successful drugs going to market.

“What we’ve done there is tried to focus much more narrowly on the needs of companies in life sciences and what they might need from generative AI,” Latshaw said. “We focus particularly on regulatory quality and operations in order to bring those drugs to market faster.”

The company has raised $4.5 million from the Chelsea Clinton-cofounded Metrodora Ventures and individual investors, including Jeff Marrazzo, cofounder of homegrown cell and gene therapy giant Spark Therapeutics, according to a BioPhy spokesperson.

“If there’s anything we learned from the past few years amid a global pandemic and a slew of new illnesses that have come from it, is that the need to bring drugs to market — quickly and effectively — has never been greater,” said Caroline Kassie, managing partner at Metrodora Ventures, in a written statement. “In fact, research shows that with just a 10 percent improvement in the success rates of clinical trials from AI is predicted to lead to an additional 250 novel therapies over the next 10 years. I’m excited to partner with Dave and the BioPhy team, who are dedicated to turning this prediction into a reality.”

BioPhy has 10 employees, but Latshaw said he expects headcount to double over the next year thanks to this funding. He will likely be looking for people to fill AI and bioinformatics roles as well as client relations roles.

The company is in the midst of pilots with two of the five biggest pharmaceutical companies, per Latshaw. His long-term goal for BioPhy is to be a trusted source for metrics and assessments for biotech companies.

“That can give [life sciences companies] the peace of mind knowing that when they look at an assessment, that it’s something that will give them transparency into the opportunities that they’re looking to pursue,” Latshaw said. “And once they do make those decisions, be able to use technology further to accomplish those goals faster.”

Sounds like a strike.