bit.bio Funding, Investors & Competitors

Astromech is an artificial intelligence company spun out of Colossal Biosciences, founded by Ben Lamm. It uses AI to analyze biological data and forecast evolution and disease risk, applying its platform to biotech research.

Anew Labs is a platform developer that builds artificial intelligence systems for identifying pharmaceutical compounds, such as predicting molecular shapes and designing antibodies, by combining computational work with laboratory validation targeting inflammatory diseases.

Merck KGaA operates in three main segments: life science, electronics, and healthcare. The life science segment provides laboratory consumables and instruments to researchers in academia and applied fields, including the biopharmaceutical industry. The electronics segment offers specialty materials to manufacture a variety of products, such as semiconductors and flat-screen televisions. In the healthcare segment, Merck develops, manufactures, and sells branded pharmaceuticals with significant therapeutic concentrations in oncology, multiple sclerosis, and fertility. In 1995, the E. Merck family publicly sold part of the company, resulting in the current 30% public ownership of the firm.

Sinovac Life Sciences is a research-driven biopharma conducting vaccine R&D, production, and commercialization for human infectious diseases. Based in China, it focuses on viral pathogens through clinical trials, process scale-up, and regulatory filings. Operations mirror Sinovac Biotech efforts in formulation stability and large-scale filling for needle-free and traditional delivery systems.

Illumina provides tools and services to analyze genetic material with life science and clinical lab applications. The company generates over 90% of its revenue from sequencing instruments, consumables, and services. Illumina’s high-throughput technology enables whole genome sequencing in humans and other large organisms. Its lower throughput tools enable applications that require smaller data outputs, such as viral and cancer tumor screening. Illumina also sells microarrays (9% of 2024 sales) that enable lower-cost, focused genetic screening with primarily consumer and agricultural applications.

Intrepid Labs is a biotechnology firm spun out of the University of Toronto in 2022. The company applies artificial intelligence and robotics to automate drug formulation processes, speeding up therapeutic development for pharmaceuticals. Its platform optimizes solid oral dosage forms by predicting formulation outcomes and reducing trial-and-error iterations. Based in Toronto, Ontario, Intrepid Labs partners with contract development organizations to enhance efficiency in early-stage drug manufacturing pipelines.

Chai Discovery is a San Francisco-based applied AI research lab, founded in 2024, that builds foundation models to predict and design interactions between biochemical molecules for drug discovery. Its models, including Chai-1, Chai-2, and Chai-3, are used to design molecules such as antibodies for difficult drug targets, with its most recent model achieving a de novo antibody hit rate far above prior computational methods. The company's technology has been used by pharmaceutical partners including Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Novartis.

Insitro is a drug discovery company integrating machine learning with high-throughput biology to identify novel therapeutic targets. South San Francisco-headquartered and founded in 2018, it generates functional genomic datasets from bioengineered cell models aligned with patient clinical data. Insitro's predictive models accelerate small molecule development for diseases like oncology and fibrosis. The company collaborates with pharmaceutical partners on precision medicine programs using its industrial-scale wet lab facilities.

Pathos is an AI drug development company leveraging multimodal data for therapy discovery. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, it combines machine learning with clinical expertise to advance oncology and immunology pipelines. Pathos has raised over $100 million in funding and partners with pharmaceutical firms on target identification. Founded in 2022, it operates across preclinical and clinical stages.

Lila Sciences is a Boston-based AI platform accelerating discoveries in life sciences, chemistry, and materials. Its tools automate hypothesis generation, experiment design, and data analysis using large language models trained on 100 million publications. Deployed by 50 labs at universities like MIT, it integrates robotic labs for high-throughput synthesis.

Eli Lilly is a drug firm with a focus on neuroscience, cardiometabolic, cancer, and immunology. Lilly's key products include Verzenio for cancer; Mounjaro, Zepbound, Jardiance, Trulicity, Humalog, and Humulin for cardiometabolic; and Taltz and Olumiant for immunology.

Johnson & Johnson is the world's largest and most diverse healthcare firm. It has two divisions: innovative medicine and medtech. These now represent all of the company's sales following the divestment of the consumer business, Kenvue, in 2023. After restructurings in 2023-24, the drug division focuses on three main therapeutic areas: immunology, oncology, and neurology. Geographically, just over half of total revenue is generated in the United States.

AbbVie is a pharmaceutical firm with a strong exposure to immunology (with Humira, Skyrizi, and Rinvoq) and oncology (with Imbruvica and Venclexta). The company was spun off from Abbott in early 2013. The 2020 acquisition of Allergan added several new products and drugs in aesthetics, including Botox. The 2024 acquisitions of Cerevel (neuroscience) and ImmunoGen (oncology) help supplement AbbVie's portfolio.

Merck makes pharmaceutical products to treat several conditions in a number of therapeutic areas, including cardiometabolic disease, cancer, and infections. Within cancer, the firm's immuno-oncology platform, led by Keytruda, is a major contributor to overall sales. The company also has a substantial vaccine business aimed at preventing pediatric diseases, as well as Gardasil for human papillomavirus. Additionally, Merck sells animal health-related drugs. From a geographical perspective, 47% of the company's sales are generated from US human health (pharmaceuticals and vaccines).

Roche is a Swiss biopharmaceutical and diagnostic company. The firm's bestselling pharmaceutical products include a variety of oncology therapies from acquired partner Genentech, and its diagnostics group was bolstered by the acquisition of Ventana in 2008. Oncology products account for 50% of pharmaceutical sales, and centralized and point-of-care diagnostics for more than half of diagnostic-related sales.

Novartis develops and manufactures innovative drugs. Key areas of drug development are oncology, immunology, neuroscience, respiratory, and cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic. It also has an established medicines business, which includes off-patent franchises. The company sells its products globally, with the United States constituting close to one-third of total revenue.

A merger between Astra of Sweden and Zeneca Group of the United Kingdom formed AstraZeneca in 1999. The firm sells branded drugs across a number of major therapeutic areas, including oncology (about 40% of total revenue), cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic (25%), rare disease (17%), and respiratory and immunology (15%). The majority of sales comes from international markets, with the United States representing close to one third of its sales.

Founded in Germany in 1972 by former IBM employees, SAP is the world’s largest provider of enterprise application software. Known as the leader in enterprise resource planning software, SAP’s portfolio also includes software for supply chain management, procurement, travel and expense management, and customer relationship management, among others. The company operates in more than 180 countries and has more than 400,000 customers, approximately 80% of which are small to medium-size enterprises.