Doctors Raise $30 Million for Cancer Treatment AI Startup

Saritha Rai, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- Pi Health, a startup that deploys artificial intelligence in the field of cancer treatment trials, raised more than $30 million in funding to further develop its technology and tie new partnerships.

AlleyCorp and Obvious Ventures led the Series A round, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup said Thursday. The funding will launch Pi Health as an independent company, three years after it was incubated as a subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed BeiGene Ltd.

Pi Health’s platform helps clinical trial researchers recruit cancer patients across the US, Brazil, Australia and India, allowing drug makers to draw from a diverse genetic pool. The disease is widespread across all strata of populations around the globe, but less than 5% of adults with cancer enroll in clinical studies — a group Pi Health wants to broaden.

The company uses AI to automate tasks such as matching patients with trials, clinical documentation, and adverse event monitoring during the studies. Pi Health says its software simplifies a process that currently entails Excel spreadsheets, paper binders, manual data entry and dozens of piece-meal technology solutions.

“We’ve created an entirely new infrastructure for the clinical trial process, which has become mired in inefficiencies that impede progress,” Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Kim, 46, said.

Pi Health was founded by physicians Kim, a former deputy director of the Oncology Center of Excellence of the US Food and Drug Administration, and Bobby Reddy, a former faculty of Harvard Medical School and scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he continues to teach and practice.

Pi Health currently harnesses popular generative AI models but the physician duo has plans to build their own foundational AI system from the ground up.

“We want to go to places that have never participated in clinical trials,” said Chief Operating Officer Reddy, 39.