Miles Wang, a researcher who joined OpenAI in 2024 after dropping out of Harvard, is in talks to launch an AI drug discovery startup at a $2 billion valuation, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
Wang co-authored research at OpenAI exploring how AI models can automate and accelerate scientific discovery. His new venture, still in formation, may focus on finding new applications for existing drugs and compounds that previously failed in clinical trials, a couple of sources told TechCrunch.
The logic behind that focus is commercially compelling. Repurposing drugs that have already cleared safety testing with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can compress the time to revenue considerably, compared with developing entirely new compounds from scratch.
The AI Drug Discovery Startup Funding Wave
Wang would be entering a sector that is drawing some of the largest cheques in venture capital. Chai Discovery, a two-year-old startup that builds AI models to predict molecular interactions and identify new drugs, this week raised $400 million in a Series C that valued the company at $3.8 billion, nearly triple the $1.3 billion valuation it carried just seven months earlier.
The round was led by Index Ventures, with a roster of co-investors that included Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Thrive Capital, General Catalyst, and OpenAI itself, among others.
Chai Discovery’s co-founder Josh Meier also passed through OpenAI as a researcher, giving Wang’s reported trajectory something of a precedent. Before Chai, Meier and his co-founder Matt led the AI division at Absci, where they worked on early de novo antibody design research and contributed to multiple compounds now in clinical development, according to General Catalyst, one of Chai’s investors. The company’s model Chai-2 can now design full-length monoclonal antibodies with developability comparable to approved therapeutics, per a technical report the company published.
Chai’s platform is already deployed with pharmaceutical partners including Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Novartis, according to CityBiz.
Isomorphic Labs Sets the Scale
Then there is Isomorphic Labs, the London-based AI drug design company founded by Alphabet in 2021, which raised a $2.1 billion Series B in May. The round was led by Thrive Capital, with participation from Alphabet and GV as existing backers, alongside new investors including MGX, Temasek, CapitalG, and the UK Sovereign AI Fund, the company announced.
Isomorphic uses AI models including AlphaFold 3, developed in partnership with Google DeepMind, to predict the structures and interactions of molecules. Its proprietary drug design engine, IsoDDE, is the target for the new capital, alongside accelerating the company’s in-house pipeline into the clinic, as reported by FierceBiotech.
Together, Chai Discovery and Isomorphic Labs have raised more than $2.5 billion between them in the space of a few months. Wang’s reported $2 billion target valuation would put his untested startup in the same bracket as the sector’s best-funded players before a single product has been disclosed.
Wang joined OpenAI in 2024, leaving Harvard before completing his undergraduate degree in computer science. The willingness of investors to back him at that valuation reflects a broader pattern: venture capital has become comfortable once again with young founders who have not finished college, particularly when the thesis is grounded in frontier AI research rather than an unproven consumer product.
Whether the drug-repurposing angle proves to be the right wedge into the market is the question that will shape his fundraise. The commercial case is clear enough; the scientific differentiation, against well-capitalised incumbents armed with AlphaFold and hundreds of millions in fresh capital, is what investors will probe hardest.
