Xaira Therapeutics announced it has launched with a mission to help re-engineer how we discover and develop medicines through the end-to-end application of emerging AI technologies. A joint incubation by ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Labs, the company launched with over $1 billion of committed capital from lead investors ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Capital, joined by F-Prime, NEA, Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), Byers Capital, Rsquared, SV Angel, and others.
Xaira combines three core elements: advanced machine learning research, expansive data generation to power new models, and therapeutic product development. With talent in each of these areas, Xaira is developing a drug discovery and development platform to advance multiple drug programs and unlock biological understanding to inform future discovery.
Plus, Xaira is building AI research capabilities spanning fundamental computational methods development and their application to biological discovery, the design of drug-like matter, and clinical development.
Xaira was co-founded by Dr. David Baker, Professor of Biochemistry and Director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The company now employs researchers who developed the leading models for protein and antibody design, RFdiffusion, and RFantibody while in Dr. Baker’s lab. And Xaira’s broader team will advance these models and develop new methods that can connect the world of biological targets and engineered molecules to the human experience of disease.
Xaira’s advances in biological machine learning are also supported by the company’s ability to generate, integrate, and learn from vast multidimensional data sets that comprehensively characterize disease-relevant biology at all scales, from molecules to people. Xaira’s internal platforms incorporate leading technologies and personnel, which were spun out into Xaira at inception from Illumina’s long-standing functional genomics R&D effort. The company has also integrated a proteomics group from Interline Therapeutics.
Xaira’s platform forms the basis of a solid therapeutic product development capability across multiple modalities. And its design capabilities, applied to previously difficult to drug targets, are the foundation for a pipeline of differentiated therapeutics. The platform is also being built to transform every laboratory and clinical experiment into a vehicle for rich data generation. The product development process fuels the development of improved AI and biological foundation models.
Xaira is headed by renowned scientist Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne, a former Chief Scientific Officer of Genentech and former President of Rockefeller and Stanford Universities. And other executives include co-founder Dr. Hetu Kamisetty, formerly of Meta and the Institute for Protein Design; Dr. Arvind Rajpal, formerly of Genentech; and Dr. Don Kirkpatrick, formerly of Interline and Genentech.
The board of directors currently includes:
- Vikram Bajaj, Ph.D, Co-Founder and CEO, Foresite Labs; Managing Director, Foresite Capital
- Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D., Baker Family Director of Sarafan ChEM-H; Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor; Professor (by courtesy) of Chemical and Systems Biology and of Radiology, Stanford University; Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Nobel Prize
- Kaye Foster, M.B.A., Senior Advisor at The Boston Consulting Group, and former SVP at Global Human Resources, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, former CHRO at Johnson & Johnson
- Alex Gorsky, M.B.A., Former Chairman and CEO at Johnson & Johnson
- Scott Gottlieb, M.D., Former FDA Commissioner and Partner at NEA
- Stephen Knight, M.D., President & Managing Partner at F-Prime
- Mathai Mammen, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of FogPharma and Former EVP, Pharmaceuticals R&D at Johnson & Johnson
- Robert Nelsen, M.B.A., Co-Founder and Managing Director at ARCH Venture Partners
- Richard Scheller, Ph.D., Chairman of R&D, BridgeBio; former Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Therapeutics at 23andMe, and the former Executive Vice President of Research and Early Development at Genentech; Lasker Award
- Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Ph.D., CEO at Xaira; former President at Stanford University & Rockefeller University; former Chief Scientific Officer at Genentech
- Bryan White, M.B.A. Chair, Advisory Board at the Institute for Protein Design; Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Sahsen Ventures; former CIO Quadra/Quellos and Blackrock Alternative Advisors
KEY QUOTES:
“We have reached the point where AI finally allows us to see biology in new ways, and translate those discoveries to better treatments for disease. This creates an enormous opportunity for us to rethink drug discovery entirely. For this reason, Xaira is the largest initial funding commitment in ARCH history.”
- Robert Nelsen, Managing Director and Co-Founder of ARCH Venture Partners
“Driven by growing data sets and new methods, there has been accelerating progress in artificial intelligence and its applications to medicine, biology and chemistry, including seminal work from David Baker’s lab at the Institute for Protein Design. In starting Xaira, we have brought together incredible multidisciplinary talent and capabilities at the right time to reimagine our entire approach, from drug discovery to clinical development.”
- Vikram Bajaj, CEO of Foresite Labs and Managing Director of Foresite Capital
“In my previous roles, I witnessed an earlier generation of technologies fundamentally change drug discovery, delivering new medicines that alleviate the burden of disease for many patients. Now, witnessing how AI is impacting other industries and the considerable progress in applications of AI in biology, I believe we are poised for a revolution. Xaira is in a strong position to both advance fundamental AI research and translate these advances into transformative new medicines, and I am excited to have the opportunity to lead the team.”
- Marc Tessier-Lavigne, CEO
“The board looks forward to supporting the team in building a transformative company under the visionary leadership of Marc Tessier-Lavigne.”
- Director Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner and current NEA partner
“Xaira promises to be a magnet for the best talent in AI and drug development.”
- Kaye Foster, Senior Advisor, The Boston Consulting Group and former SVP, Global Human Resources, Onyx Pharmaceuticals
