Biotech AI startup Unlearn raises $15M in funding to create “digital twin” profiles of patients in clinical trials

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming one of the hottest startup investing trends of 2023. Interest in AI startups has grown in recent months, thanks to the sudden success of OpenAI ChatGPT. Although, investments in AI have been hot in recent years, with a reported $75 billion invested in the space in 2020 alone.

However, between 2020 and 2022, generative AI, the area that ChatGPT falls under saw a 425% increase in VC investments. But ChatGPT is not the only game in town. There are a dozen AI startups using generative AI in other sectors. One of those startups is Unlearn.AI, a San Francisco-based Biotech AI startup using machine learning to create “digital twin” profiles of patients in clinical trials.

Today, Unlearn announced it has raised $15 million in funding to grow its partnerships and accelerate regulatory approval, the startup[ told Reuters on Tuesday. The round, which valued the startup at $265 million, was backed with investment from Radical Ventures and Wittington Ventures. To date, Unlearn has raised a total of $85 million from high-profile investors including Insight Partners, 8VC, and Mubadala Ventures.

In conjunction with the funding, Unlearn also announced that Mira Murati, chief technology officer at Microsoft-backed OpenAI, is joining the company’s Board of Directors.

“The team at Unlearn is working on applications of AI that have incredible potential to revolutionise healthcare, diagnostics and treatment,” Murati told Reuters.

Founded in 2017 by CEO Charles K. Fisher, Aaron Smith, and Jon Walsh, Unlearn leverages generative AI not only to generate content such as text, images, and computer code but also to construct digital twins utilizing its neural networks. This innovative approach aims to accelerate clinical drug trials, potentially resulting in reduced costs for drug developers by replacing patients who receive a placebo and reducing the number of required enrollments if successful.

Unlearn secured funding subsequent to its approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in September to employ its AI-based approach for conducting smaller and faster clinical trials. The San Francisco-based company also entered into multi-million dollar deals with pharmaceutical giants, such as Merck (MRK.N).

Unlearn’s utilization of generative AI is a relatively new application of the technology, which involves training AI to take actions based on past data. This approach gained popularity through platforms like OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT.

The company’s platform collects patient data from research studies to create a digital twin for each patient participating in the clinical trial, which subsequently populates the control arm of the study. Unlearn primarily focuses on Phase III clinical trials, and its CEO, Charles Fisher, emphasized the importance of obtaining regulatory approvals from entities such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to commercialize the technology for global drugmakers.

“For us the big priority on the regulatory front is to partner with drugmakers to run trials and set a precedent,” said Fisher.