Disease Modeling Startup Receives $80M Investment To Expand

CytoReason, an Israeli startup using AI to create computational models of diseases, has received $80 million in funding to scale up its disease models and set up a hub in the US.

Founded in 2016 and based in Tel Aviv, CytoReason has dozens of biological and data experts working with pharmaceutical and biotech companies to determine the most relevant and viable new treatments for patients. 

The funding came from significant organizations in the high-tech industry, including OurCrowd, Israel’s largest online investment platform; US chip giant Nvidia; pharma giant Pfizer; and scientific instrument supplier Thermo Fisher. 

The company says it will use the investment to expand the reach of its models and its data, as well as establish an office later this year in Cambridge, Massachusetts, home to both Harvard and MIT. 

“CytoReason is grateful for this infusion of new capital from industry technology powerhouses such as NVIDIA, Pfizer, and Thermo Fisher. The world understands that data alone is not enough, and that the future of data-driven insights is in data modeling. CytoReason is at the forefront of this revolution in pharma R&D,” said CytoReason co-founder and CEO David Harel.  

“Over the last year, CytoReason has strengthened its platforms using Nvidia’s latest accelerated computing and AI platforms, achieving more than 10x acceleration for inference workloads,” said Kimberly Powell, Vice President and General Manager, Healthcare at Nvidia. 

“Our continued collaboration with CytoReason will help enable more life sciences companies to benefit from CytoReason’s predictive clinical insights.”