Parallel Bio, a Cambridge-based biotech company pioneering human-first drug discovery, announced it has raised $21 million in Series A funding led by AIX Ventures. The round attracted prominent investors including Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce, along with Amplo, Metaplanet, Humba Ventures, Atypical Ventures, Undeterred Capital, and Jeff Dean.
The company simultaneously revealed that eight pharmaceutical partners, including three Fortune 500 companies, are testing more than 50 drugs and immunotherapies using its organoid-based immune system platform. This milestone includes Centivax, which completed the first preclinical testing on the platform for its universal flu vaccine candidate.
Addressing Drug Development's 95% Failure Rate
"For too long, the reliance on lab mice to model human biology has come at a high cost: 95% of drugs fail in human trials even after succeeding in animal studies," said Robert DiFazio, CEO and co-founder at Parallel Bio. "We're turning that on its head by using organoids and AI to discover drugs in true-to-life human models from the start."
The company's platform combines lymph-node organoids with AI and robotics to replicate the human immune system at scale across diverse populations. These 3D, self-assembling models of human biology mimic an organ's structure and function, responding to disease or treatment as if the organoids were individual patients.
Platform Validation Through Centivax Partnership
Parallel Bio partnered with Centivax to generate human-first data validating Centivax's universal flu vaccine called Centi-Flu, which is now in manufacturing for human clinical trials with the first patient expected to be dosed early next year.
"Parallel Bio enables us to derisk the single biggest source of failure in vaccine development: making sure the vaccines work in humans before the human trials have even begun," said Jacob Glanville, president and CEO at Centivax. "Even though we have validated our pan-influenza responses in mice, rats, pigs, and ferrets, ultimately we are making a universal vaccine for humans."
The organoid study demonstrated Centi-Flu's broad efficacy by targeting common viral features shared across influenza strains. Human immune organoids "vaccinated" with Centi-Flu produced B cells capable of reacting to various flu strains, including those not included in the vaccine. The organoids, derived from patients with prior flu exposure, proved that Centi-Flu could trigger broad humoral responses in flu-exposed individuals.
The organoid model also showed activation of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, suggesting that Centi-Flu stimulates both antibody production and T cell immunity—a combination particularly valuable for protecting against severe flu, including hospitalization and death.
Scaling Human-First Drug Discovery
Parallel Bio will use the new capital to scale the AI and automation capabilities of its organoid-based immune system platform, expand its team of scientists and engineers, and support growing pharmaceutical partnerships. The company has raised nearly $30 million total, including this Series A and previous seed rounds.
"Starting with human models enables new drugs to reach the market at a pace never possible before," said Juliana Hilliard, Parallel Bio co-founder and chief scientific officer. "We aim to slash $2 billion and 9 years from each drug candidate in development by predicting success at the earliest stages of discovery."
AIX Ventures partner Krish Ramadurai, who joined the company's board of directors, commented: "Parallel Bio is redefining drug development by turning the conventional model upside down—transforming today's 95% failure rate into a pathway for 95% success. Their groundbreaking human-first platform unlocks biological insights previously impossible to capture, accelerating the development of effective treatments that reach patients faster."
Since launching Clinical Trial in a Dish last year, Parallel Bio has seen growing demand from pharmaceutical companies for this commercial application that accurately predicts the safest and most effective drug candidates for human trials.
