Irish biotech startup bringing biological reasoning to AI drug development to reduce early-stage failure rates

The Problem Meta-Flux Is Solving

Meta-Flux (Techstars 2024) addresses a critical bottleneck in drug development: analysing complex, siloed biological data. More than 90% of drug candidates fail before reaching patients, often after 10–15 years and billions in investment. Many failures stem not from flawed drugs, but from weak biomarkers, missed toxicity risks, or oversimplified biological models.

The company’s AI Biologist platform integrates multi-omic and phenotypic data to map interactions across genes, proteins, metabolism, and clinical outcomes. By generating a systems-level view of human biology, it helps scientists make faster, safer preclinical decisions, surface toxicity risks, validate biomarkers, and reduce costly early-stage failures.

How Meta-Flux Is Different

Many companies build large AI platforms that analyze one area of biology in isolation. Meta-Flux takes a different approach by connecting the separate “villages” of biology — genes, proteins, metabolism, and more — into a complete, interpretable map.

The platform’s outputs are transparent and grounded in biology, not just black-box predictions. Meta-Flux partners with pharma companies to tailor models to their data and provide expert support, offering decision-ready tools rather than a standard SaaS solution.

Founding Story

Meta-Flux was founded in 2021 by Lee Sherlock, an immunologist, and Brendan Martin, an AI engineer. Both founders lost close family members to lung cancer, motivating their mission to help promising treatments reach patients faster. The company was created to reduce high drug failure rates by making early-stage decisions smarter and more accurately.

Traction and Milestones

In early pilots, Meta-Flux identified novel biomarkers, flagged preclinical risks, and refined translational strategies in oncology and neurology. The company is expanding into rare diseases and onboarding new pilot partners across Europe and the U.S.

Meta-Flux raised €1.8 million ($2 million) in seed funding, backed by Techstars Ventures and senior executives at Pfizer, Merck, and Gilead Sciences, as well as tech leaders from Google, Amazon, and Indeed.

The company recently completed accelerator programs, including Techstars Chicago powered by J.P. Morgan, MassBio DRIVE Boston, and the NDRC at Dogpatch Labs, connecting it with mentors, investors, and global pharma partners.

Vision and Impact

Meta-Flux aims to be pharma’s trusted AI decision-support partner. Over the next 12–18 months, the company plans to scale partnerships and validate its platform across new therapeutic areas.

Lee Sherlock, CEO, said:

"Bringing a new drug to market can take more than a decade and cost billions, yet most candidates fail well before reaching clinical trials. We’re building a platform that helps scientists ask better questions, with more confidence. Drug development doesn’t need more data — it needs smarter decisions with the data we already have."

Brendan Martin, CTO, added:

"AI can’t replace scientists, but it can supercharge them. Meta-Flux gives researchers the tools to explore multiple hypotheses at once, so they spend less time on manual data wrangling and more time discovering the next breakthrough."

Fernando Ferrer, AI & Data Engineering Leader; Angel Investor & Former founding member of Q2 Metrics, noted:

"Having spent two decades building data systems for clinical research, from cancer trials to healthcare analytics startups, I’ve seen how slow and expensive drug development can be. Meta-Flux stands out because they’re not doing AI theatre: they’re turning multi-omic data into clear, actionable go/no-go signals. That’s the kind of decision support that can cut years and billions from R&D."

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