SAN FRANCISCO — It took only a single, one-hour meeting in a Starbucks to convince venture capitalist Robert Nelsen that he was going to invest in the company being built by machine-learning whiz Daphne Koller. “She’s just an amazing force of nature,” said Nelsen, who invests for ARCH Venture Partners. Koller’s company, Insitro, in a matter of months raised over $100 million from big-name investors including ARCH, Foresite Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and the firm that manages Jeff Bezos’ personal VC investments. (Koller refers to Bezos by his first name.) Now, it’s time for the next step. On Tuesday, the giant drug maker Gilead Sciences said it would pay Insitro $15 million — and up to $1 billion more down the line if it meets certain goals — for help in developing drugs to treat a common liver disease. It is the South San Francisco-based company’s first deal with a drug maker, and offers a test of whether artificial intelligence can remake drug development. Unlock this article by subscribing to STAT Plus and enjoy your first 30 days free! STAT Plus is STAT's premium subscription service for in-depth biotech, pharma, policy, and life science coverage and analysis. Our award-winning team covers news on Wall Street, policy developments in Washington, early science breakthroughs and clinical trial results, and health care disruption in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Gilead Sciences has agreed a deal with machine-learning start-up Insitro to help the drug maker develop treatments for liver disease. Gilead will pay an initial $15m to the San Francisco-based start-up, with a potential $1bn in payments at later dates if certain targets are met. Through the deal, Insitro will develop and apply machine algorithms to the task of identifying proteins that could be targets for innovative drugs to treat non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH.