Israeli AI Startup Converge Bio Accelerates Drug Discovery with Generative Platform

Converge Bio is an Israeli startup that offers a generative AI platform for accelerated drug discovery and development. The firm raised $5.5 million in seed funding, led by TLV Partners. Converge Bio’s platform uses large language models (LLMs) trained on biological and chemical data (DNA, RNA, protein sequences, and small molecules) to help biotech and pharmaceutical companies discover and develop better-performing drugs in less time.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are a type of artificial intelligence that can generate human-quality text, translate languages, write different kinds of creative content, and answer your questions in an informative way. They are trained on massive amounts of text data, 1 allowing them to learn patterns and generate text that is often indistinguishable from human-written content.

Converge Bio explains that developing new medications and biological products is a complex, lengthy, and costly endeavor. On average, bringing a new drug to market takes about 10 years and requires an investment of approximately $1 billion. The process is fraught with risk — 90% of candidates fail during clinical trials after significant investments have been made.

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“Biological languages, like DNA and RNA, aren’t just random sequences — they have intricate structures and rules, similar to the grammar and syntax of spoken languages,” said Dov Gertz, co-founder and CEO of Converge Bio. “Just like how ChatGPT can instantly generate a string of words to answer a question, a model trained on biological data can help rapidly design optimized mRNA sequences for vaccines, cutting months or years from the process.”

Converge Bio is a transformative generative AI platform accelerating the development of life-saving drugs. By harnessing the power of AI, Converge Bio empowers scientists to rapidly discover novel therapies, engineer more effective medicines, and ultimately improve patient outcomes. Through collaborations with industry leaders like Teva, Compugen, and BiomX, Converge Bio is at the forefront of the AI revolution in healthcare, working to address some of the world’s most pressing health challenges.

“Generative AI will transform every stage of drug discovery and development and our platform is at the forefront, allowing any pharma or biotech company to easily incorporate AI within their R&D pipelines,” said Gertz. “We start by predicting biological outcomes, such as how well a potential drug might work. Then, we provide explanations for these predictions in biological terms that scientists can understand and trust. Finally, we use this knowledge to generate novel biological products, like optimized drug candidates. The models are pre-trained on vast amounts of data, so they can create significant insights even from minimal fine-tuning data.”