Atlas Bio launches with $12.5M to eliminate animal testing and simulate Phase 2 trials
Switzerland-based Atlas Bio has emerged from stealth with $12.5 million in funding to develop AI simulations that predict drug responses, with the ambition of replacing parts of clinical development and animal testing.
Why it matters: The techbio startup from Basel wants to help drugmakers identify promising diseases and patient groups before committing to expensive Phase 2 trials. Its broader claim — that simulations can replace those trials — remains to be demonstrated.
“For sixty years, drug development has been built on two flawed assumptions: that mice predict humans, and that the only way to learn whether a drug works is to give it to thousands of patients and wait. Both are now becoming outdated. Human biology is finally legible to AI — and that changes the economics of this entire industry,” said Simon Romanski, CEO and co-founder.
The financing: UK-based early-stage venture capital firm Creandum led the $10 million seed round, with partner Katharina Wilhelm joining the board. Atlas also disclosed an earlier $2.5 million pre-seed round led by First Momentum Ventures and LEA Partners. The money will support scientific and commercial hiring, platform validation and additional enterprise customers.
How it works: Atlas says its AI model was trained on roughly 2 million RNA readouts from human tissue, capturing patterns of gene activity. It uses those patterns to predict how individual patient profiles would respond to different treatments across diseases.
The company says simulation projects take about 12 weeks and could prevent sponsors from committing to a Phase 2 that currently sits at a 70% failure rate. The use of AI would also make trial design easier, as the technology can compare several treatments against the same patient profile and help developers select indications, identify potential responders and assess differentiation from existing drugs.
“By training our foundation model on roughly 2 million human RNA readouts, we can generalise across indications and treatments, enabling simulations that aren’t tied to one disease or one mechanism,” said Sebastian Bayer, chief technology officer and co-founder, who previously worked on language models at Google.
The regulatory backdrop: Atlas’ launch comes as U.S. regulators expand the scope for alternatives to animal testing. The FDA Modernization Act 2.0, enacted in 2022, explicitly allowed non-animal methods, including computer models and cell-based assays, to support applications to begin human trials.
In September 2026, the FDA followed up with a rule replacing references to “animal tests” with the broader term “nonclinical tests” in its regulations. Scheduled to take effect Feb. 4, 2027, the update reinforces a role for validated alternatives while maintaining existing safety standards.
Atlas sees itself has a particularly well positioned to take advantage of this new regulation. The company says it is already working with an unnamed top 10 global pharmaceutical company and that a Basel biotech used its simulations to replace animal testing in a specific development workflow before proceeding to human trials.
