OpenAI Buys Orchestra Bio to Put AI Agents in Charge of Drug Development Grunt Work
In brief
- OpenAI bought Orchestra Bio, a startup whose AI agents track drug development projects. OpenAI will add its team and platform to Rosalind, its life sciences tools. The companies did not share the price of the deal.
- Orchestra's agents show how problems, such as a failed batch of medicine made in a factory, can affect an entire drug development project. They compare possible solutions, but scientists make the final decisions.
- The deal follows Anthropic's purchase of Coefficient Bio for about $400 million in April. The two rival AI companies are competing to control the work processes used to develop new medicines.
OpenAI has bought Orchestra Bio, a San Francisco startup whose AI agents help drug companies keep large, complicated drug development projects on schedule, the company behind ChatGPT announced Tuesday.
“Our goal is to help scientists make discoveries and manage the work needed to turn them into treatments that reach patients sooner,” OpenAI said in the announcement.
Orchestra’s team and platform will become part of Rosalind, OpenAI’s collection of AI models and tools for people who study biology and chemistry. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.
Developing a new medicine from the first idea to approval in the United States can take up to 15 years, according to OpenAI. Every month saved means a new treatment can reach people who need it a month sooner. It also means the company developing the drug can start earning money sooner.
The process is also extremely expensive. Bringing one approved drug to market can cost more than $2.6 billion, and fewer than 10% of drug candidates tested in humans ever make it to pharmacy shelves.
OpenAI says drug development teams must coordinate work between their own departments and outside partners, as well as deal with computer systems that often cannot share information with one another. These partners usually include contract research organizations, which are outside companies hired to run studies, and contract manufacturers, which make experimental drugs.
Orchestra’s AI agents are software programs that can monitor tasks and spot problems on their own. They work out which tasks and deadlines will be affected, collect the information needed to understand the problem, and compare possible responses. Scientists and project leaders make the final decisions.
Founded in the fall of 2022, Orchestra raised its first round of funding, known as a seed round, from Andreessen Horowitz, Definition Capital, Insight Partners, and 8VC. It raised about $20 million in total, according to Caplight data. Orchestra Bio is not the same company as Orchestra BioMed, an unrelated medical device maker listed on Nasdaq under the stock ticker OBIO.
In April, OpenAI launched GPT-Rosalind, an AI model designed specifically for biology and drug discovery. Access was limited to approved business customers in the United States, including Amgen and Moderna. A related product, Rosalind Workbench, connects the model to scientific tools and data so researchers can study results and plan experiments.
Rosalind helps scientists decide what to test. Orchestra is meant to manage the work that follows. OpenAI says the combined team will build AI agents that connect scientific discoveries with the decisions and follow-up studies needed to turn promising results into real medicines.
In January alone, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health, which allows users to connect their medical records to the chatbot. It also bought the medical records startup Torch for a reported $100 million to help build the service. That same month, OpenAI turned another company it had bought, a scientific writing tool called Crixet, into its Prism platform for researchers.
OpenAI has openly said it wants to earn more from science than subscription fees alone. In a January blog post, Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar wrote that as AI spreads into drug discovery and similar fields, licensing fees, agreements based on intellectual property, and payments tied to results will help share the value created. In other words, OpenAI would like to earn a share of the money made if its tools help develop a highly successful drug.
Anthropic, OpenAI’s closest rival, has followed a similar plan. It bought the AI biotech startup Coefficient Bio for about $400 million in April and launched a research platform called Claude Science in June. In September, Anthropic said its Claude model helped discover a previously unknown enzyme system that resembles CRISPR, the gene-editing tool. However, some scientists said the importance of the discovery had been exaggerated.
OpenAI did not say how much it paid for Orchestra or when its AI agents would become available inside Rosalind. OpenAI announced another Rosalind initiative just five days earlier. Under its new Rosalind Academic Plan, eligible university research labs in the United States can receive up to 30 free seats for as long as 12 months.