Scaling Biotech
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Eli Lilly flips the (foundation model) script
At a first glance, Eli Lilly’s recent announcement of a platform hosting foundation models trained on over $1 billion worth of internal data, doesn’t…
Sep 24
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Jesse Johnson
5
Build vs Buy in the Age of Vibe Coding
My post last week about Tahoe Therapeutics’ unusual business model got me thinking about moats again - what makes a product or a service hard for…
Sep 17
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Jesse Johnson
1
Are one-customer data startups the new techbios?
Last week, I speculated that platform-style innovation in AI for drug discovery will increasingly shift towards pharma partnerships with more…
Sep 10
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Jesse Johnson
2
Pharma Partnerships are the Future of AI for Drug Discovery
When I started working in drug discovery back in 2018, it seemed like the most interesting work was happening at platform biotech startups.
Sep 3
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Jesse Johnson
5
June 2025
Summer Vacation
I’m going to take a break from posting from now through August.
Jun 25
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Jesse Johnson
2
The first "AI Scientist" won't be a chat bot
I’ve been wanting to write about the interesting work that FutureHouse has been doing on reasoning models for biology, but I’m torn about how to frame…
Jun 18
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Jesse Johnson
3
Did a foundation model just solve virtual small molecule screening?
Last week, a team of researchers at MIT, with support from Recursion, published a new foundation model called Boltz-2 that a lot of people are very…
Jun 11
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Jesse Johnson
7
Can AI solve drug repurposing?
Nature Medicine recently published an article called A foundation model for clinician-centered drug repurposing that caught my attention because its use…
Jun 4
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Jesse Johnson
1
May 2025
Can you model biology mechanistically?
As part of the new direction that I’ve been taking this newsletter in, I’ve been exploring a bunch of different scientific applications of AI in pharma…
May 28
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Jesse Johnson
4
2
Are foundation models the new moat?
Back in April, Tempus AI announced a strategic agreement with the pharma company AstraZeneca and a startup called Pathos, to build a Biology Foundation…
May 21
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Jesse Johnson
4
Autonomous Discovery Starts with Automation
Two weeks ago, I wrote about an emerging category of software using LLMs to help labs translate manual experiment protocols into automation scripts.
May 14
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Jesse Johnson
3
1
Can an AI beat an in vivo model?
Last week, Axiom Bio came out of stealth mode with the goal of eliminating drug toxicity without using animals.
May 7
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Jesse Johnson
4
1
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