Kevin Weil, who led OpenAI for Science until he left in April, has launched a startup that aims to bring a costly drug development step back to the United States. Warp Sciences came out of stealth on Thursday with $215 million in funding, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company values Warp at $865 million including the new money, according to the company.
Why are drugmakers moving work away from Chinese contractors?
Warp will not discover drugs itself. The work it targets begins after researchers find a promising molecule. At that point, scientists often produce hundreds or thousands of versions to make the compound work better and cut side effects. Drugmakers have long sent that work to Chinese firms, especially WuXi AppTec, because those firms are cheaper and faster.
That arrangement has grown riskier as tensions between Washington and Beijing extend into drug supply chains. In June, the Pentagon added WuXi AppTec to its list of companies it says are linked to China's military. A judge blocked that move in August. Weil told Bloomberg that some drugmakers also worry about sharing sensitive data with Chinese contractors.
What is Warp Sciences building?
Warp plans to bring that work home with a fully automated lab. Its team of about 20 has already bought robotic arms and AI chips. During experiments, its chemists will wear cameras and pressure-sensing gloves. The recordings and sensor data will train Warp's own AI models.
Why haven't AI models transformed drug research yet?
Weil said frontier AI models have not yet had the same effect on drug research that they have had on software engineering and math. "That's because the field is so much more experimentally driven," he said. "The models need to see that data."
His co-founders are Manohar Paluri, a former vice president at Meta's Superintelligence Labs; DJ Patil, the White House's first chief data scientist; and Solomon Reisberg, formerly of Terremoto Biosciences. IVP, Premji Invest and Lux Capital also invested. Angel investors include OpenAI finance chief Sarah Friar, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.
Warp is the second former OpenAI leader this week to raise significant money for building things in the U.S. On Tuesday, Bob McGrew's startup Arda raised $232 million for AI that sets up factory lines.
Investor appetite for AI-driven drug research is strong. OpenAI-backed Chai Discovery raised $400 million in July. This week, OpenAI acquired Orchestra Bio, which helps drugmakers run development with AI agents. In the same month, OpenAI researcher Miles Wang was reported to be raising about $200 million for his own drug startup, with Lightspeed in talks to lead the round.
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