{
  "id": 16753526,
  "title": "Swiss startup Atlas Bio secures $12.5M to tackle drug development’s 70% failure rate and move beyond animal testing",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/27/swiss-startup-atlas-bio-secures-12-5m-to-tackle-drug-developments-70",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-10-27T13:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Tech.eu",
    "slug": "tech-eu",
    "url": "https://tech.eu/2026/10/27/swiss-startup-atlas-bio-secures-125m-to-tackle-drug-developments-70-failure-rate-and-move-beyond-animal-testing/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Swiss startup Atlas Bio has raised $12.5 million to revolutionize drug development by eliminating animal testing and reducing the industry's 70% failure rate at the crucial Phase II stage. Led by a $10 million Seed round from Creandum, the funding also includes a $2.5 million pre-Seed round from First Momentum Ventures and LEA Partners. Atlas Bio's AI foundation model, trained on 2 million RNA readouts from human tissue, simulates patient-level efficacy and safety before Phase II trials, eliminating the need for animal testing and expensive Phase II trials that take two to three years to complete. The company's in silico trials compress the timeline to just 12 weeks, enabling counterfactual analysis on multiple treatments for the same patient profile, and identifying which patients actually benefit from the drug before sponsors commit to a narrow Phase II design. Atlas Bio's platform has already been adopted by a top global pharma company and is in talks with several others. The founders, Simon Romanski and Sebastian Bayer, believe that AI can finally predict human biology accurately, changing the economics of drug development.",
  "summary": "Swiss tech-bio firm Atlas Bio today launched from stealth with a $10 million Seed round led by Creandum, alongside a previously unannounced pre-Seed round led by First Momentum Ventures and LEA Partne...",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}