Key takeaways
- Pathos AI raised a $237 million Series E at about a $3 billion post-money valuation, led by Bristol Myers Squibb.
- Pathos will license a Tempus AI neurology dataset for $55 million over five years.
- BMS gets access to Pathos's Foundry platform, with three years of exclusive rights for neuroscience programs.
Pathos AI, which uses AI to steer cancer drug development, raised a $237 million Series E at a post-money valuation of about $3 billion, the company announced on October 23. Bristol Myers Squibb led the round, with existing investors joining.
When a large drugmaker leads the round instead of a venture firm, it is a sign it wants the tool for its own pipeline. Here BMS invested and, the same day, took access to Pathos's platform for its own drug programs.
What Pathos does
Pathos runs its drug programs through a platform it calls Foundry. The company says Foundry uses "thousands of specialized AI agents" to pull together clinical data, genomics, biological sample data and information on competing drugs. It then suggests the next decision for each program: which patient subgroups to target, when to change a trial, and which risky paths to drop early.
Pathos has four drugs in clinical trials, all for cancer. Its top priority is JSKN016, an antibody-drug conjugate (an antibody that carries a toxic payload to tumor cells), which it wants to move toward registrational studies, the late-stage trials used to seek approval. The others are pocenbrodib for prostate cancer and multiple myeloma, AZD4241, a breast cancer drug partnered with AstraZeneca, and DO-2, which targets the MET protein involved in some lung cancers.
The deal around the round
Alongside the funding, Pathos announced work with BMS and Tempus AI on Alzheimer's disease and other neurological conditions:
- Tempus will build a de-identified dataset covering hundreds of thousands of patients with neurological conditions.
- Pathos will license that data for $55 million over five years and analyze it with Foundry.
- BMS gets non-exclusive access to Foundry across its portfolio, plus three years of exclusive rights to use it for its neuroscience programs.
That takes Pathos into neurology, as a data and analysis partner rather than with a drug of its own.
What to watch
The press release does not name the other investors or say how much Pathos has raised in total. The real test of an AI drug developer is trial results, and none of its four programs has reached approval. JSKN016's move toward registrational studies is the next milestone to watch.