Junction Bioscience is a therapeutics company building an autonomous AI scientist to navigate the discovery of transformative medicines. Our scientific hypothesis engine iterates upon breakthrough chemistry from the laboratory to achieve clarity and control over the molecular basis of disease. We focus on the intersection of neuroinflammation and immunology, where uncommon molecular insights position us to develop best-in-class therapies for millions of patients in need.

Our thesis: A hypothesis engine to scale and commercialize scientific creativity

Our ability to measure and manipulate biology has grown beyond the wildest expectations. Yet, thousands of diseases remain with inadequate treatments. The global biotechnology industry now faces a human bottleneck where the ability to formulate hypotheses and design rigorous experiments is far outpaced by the deluge of accessible data.

A new wave of powerful tools spanning both wet lab and computation has emerged for answering scientific questions. From our perspective, the greatest challenge and impact lies first in asking the right questions rather than simply accelerating the answers. The eventual success of a pharmaceutical drug in the clinic hinges upon crucial insights formed years in advance, and there is little ability to backtrack if better routes are identified. Our autonomous hypothesis engine represents a revolutionary turning point where AI that can reason and rapidly formulate, test, and refine valuable ideas will work alongside interdisciplinary scientific teams. Rather than looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, our approach begins with the patients and centers on identifying the best possible mechanism to reverse disease with minimal side effects. We are excited about the broader industry applications of this new approach to scientific research and general-purpose AI. At the same time, we understand the real-world complexities of bringing medicines to the clinic and remain laser-focused on conducting our technology R&D in lockstep with efficient progression of our therapeutic programs.

Our science: reconciling the physical world of atoms with cellular behavior

We are focused on a narrow set of phenomena that are ubiquitous across drug targets yet pivotal for our autoimmune and inflammatory disease programs. Our technology translates the dynamic physical world of atoms into a chemical code that we apply in our laboratory to change cellular behavior. Reconciling biophysics with pathway biology is a holy grail of drug discovery and we are dramatically pushing this frontier. For instance, we are able to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in measuring molecular interactions in living cells by a factor of 1000x. This challenging feat rewards us with unprecedented clarity into the molecular basis of disease and how to reverse it. We select our targets based on where our laboratory provides an ideal data source for our AI and where validated biology meets enormous unmet patient needs and market opportunities.

Our Team

We are a small, creative team with the highest scientific standards. Our founder, Brian Petkov, is a theoretical physicist and drug hunter with degrees in mathematics and chemistry from Duke University and doctoral training from NYU. He was previously the first employee and Vice President at a computational drug design startup, where he led the Machine Learning operation and grew a 30-person team to success on previously undruggable targets.

After years in the biotechnology industry, he realized that the major bottlenecks in early drug discovery could be solved using a combination of AI and wet-lab molecular biology techniques that very recently emerged. He started Junction Bioscience to tackle the biggest challenges and markets and ultimately bring meaningful cures to patients in need.

Traction

We received our first six-figure partnership within a week of incorporating, and our early academic case study kindled a successful research collaboration with big pharma.

The Ask

We welcome collaboration proposals around our drug discovery platform. We are focused on our internal therapeutics pipeline and are open to partnership discussions across the biotech and pharma ecosystems. Contact brian@junction.bio.