Manas AI, a newly launched biotech startup leveraging artificial intelligence for drug development, has raised $24.6 million in seed funding led by General Catalyst. The company, co-founded by oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee and entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, aims to transform the therapeutic development pipeline, starting with cancer treatments before expanding into autoimmune and rare diseases.
The startup integrates AI with top-tier scientific expertise to enhance drug discovery. Its platform accelerates chemical exploration, molecular interaction analysis, and therapeutic candidate selection at speeds 100 times faster than traditional methods. Using AI-driven chemical libraries and molecular docking simulations, Manas AI seeks to improve the efficiency and success rate of drug development.
Mukherjee and Hoffman emphasized that the company is not replacing researchers but empowering them with AI to analyze vast chemical spaces more efficiently. Ken Frazier, chairman of health assurance initiatives at General Catalyst and former CEO of Merck, described Manas AI’s potential to dramatically shorten drug discovery timelines while increasing success rates in clinical trials.
As AI continues to reshape pharmaceutical innovation, Manas AI positions itself at the forefront of this transformation, aiming to redefine how new treatments are discovered and brought to market.
