Pathos AI, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on re-engineering drug development through artificial intelligence, has announced the closing of an oversubscribed $62 million Series C funding round. The financing, led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from Revolution Growth and existing investors, brings Pathos' total funding to $102 million and values the company at $600 million post-money.
AI-Driven Precision Oncology
The funding will enable Pathos to expand its team, accelerate the development of its AI-powered drug development platform, and advance its clinical-stage pipeline of precision oncology therapeutics. Pathos is applying its AI platform to acquire additional clinical stage opportunities with Phase I results, demonstrating a safe and tolerable profile. The company focuses on identifying causal links of critical biological mechanisms that drive certain cancers and lead to worse patient outcomes.
Clinical Assets and Patient Selection
Pathos has acquired two clinical-stage precision oncology assets, P-300 and P-500, with plans to launch the next clinical trials in 2025. The PathOS™ platform is being used to fuel patient selection strategies and clinical trial design. For P-500, a Phase II-ready, brain-penetrant PRMT5 inhibitor, Pathos has prioritized certain biological mechanisms relevant for the drug. These mechanisms were shown to drive different patient outcomes for a subgroup of IDH+ high-grade glioma patients in the real world.
Ryan Fukushima, Interim CEO of Pathos, stated, "By leveraging AI to understand why some patients respond and others do not, we believe we can materially increase the probability of successful trials, accelerate development through the clinic, and help resurrect failed or shelved compounds for the patients they were meant to serve."
PathOS™ Platform Details
The PathOS™ platform utilizes a causal AI framework analyzing changes in expression levels across all genes associated with overall survival and regulated by the mechanism of a given drug. The AI models are fueled by multimodal real-world datasets with patient outcomes, DNA sequencing, and RNA sequencing data. This approach is combined with ex-vivo drug screening to verify patient selection strategies prior to designing Phase II clinical trials.
Investor Perspective
Mohamad Makhzoumi, Co-CEO, NEA, commented, "We believe Pathos’ mission to revolutionize drug discovery and development by combining best-in-class AI capabilities with large libraries of clinical patient data resonates with NEA’s storied history of investing at the intersection of technology and life science."
