Dublin-based Meta-Flux Secures €1.8M To Advance AI-Driven Drug Discovery

The platform, acting as an “AI biologist,” analyzes complex biological, clinical, and experimental data, helping scientists test hypotheses, identify promising therapeutic pathways, and make faster go/no-go decisions.

By integrating gene, protein, and metabolic pathway data, Meta-Flux provides a systems-level understanding of biological processes. This approach turns vast datasets into actionable insights, reducing wasted effort, cutting costs, and accelerating the development of new treatments.

“Bringing a new drug to market is slow, expensive, and uncertain. Too often, promising drugs fail because researchers can’t clearly predict how they’ll behave,” said founder Lee Sherlock.

“A lot of drugs end up failing because they have the wrong application. Our goal isn’t just to get more drugs to market, but to make sure the ones that do actually help the right people.

Once you have that drug and once you have the target, we help you figure out what application you should go after, what particular type of disease, what subtype of that disease, and what patients you’re going to be treating.”

The funding round attracted support from senior executives at Pfizer, Merck, and Gilead Sciences, as well as technology leaders from Google, Amazon, and Indeed.

“In a market saturated with AI claims, Meta‑Flux stands out because it delivers actionable answers,” said Fernando Ferrer, a data engineering leader and investor in Meta-Flux.

“Their platform gives scientists a way to cut through the noise and accelerate the path from development to decision.”

A senior director in R&D at Gilead Sciences, also an investor in Meta-Flux, added: “Over the next 12 to 18 months, I expect AI to transform preclinical research, accelerate discovery, improve prediction accuracy, and reduce costs.

The key for big pharma is identifying valuable AI partners in an increasingly crowded space, those who marry deep biological insight with advanced modelling to address focused, high-impact questions.

Meta-Flux exemplifies this biology-first approach, zeroing in on niche scientific challenges that unlock outsized commercial value and turning AI’s promise into tangible breakthroughs.”

About Meta-Flux

Meta-Flux, founded in 2021, acts as an AI biologist for pharmaceutical drug development. Its platform leverages AI and multi-omic data to enable adaptive experimentation, helping researchers accelerate discoveries, optimize drug candidates and make informed go/no-go decisions efficiently.