A New York City drug-development startup just convinced one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies to bet big on its artificial intelligence. Pathos AI closed a $237 million Series E financing round, pushing its post-money valuation to roughly $3 billion, with Bristol Myers Squibb stepping in to lead the round alongside the company’s existing investors.
The announcement, detailed in a company statement from Pathos AI, frames the cash infusion as fuel for scaling its proprietary Foundry platform and advancing four active drug candidates toward key milestones. As citybiz reported, the round cements Pathos as one of the better-funded players betting that AI can reshape how new medicines get discovered and tested.
Foundry’s Army of AI Agents
At the center of Pathos AI’s pitch is Foundry, described by the company as its proprietary artificial intelligence platform for drug development. Per the same Pathos AI statement, Foundry operates through thousands of specialized AI agents that synthesize clinical data, genomic information, biological specimen data and competitive intelligence in real time. The goal, according to the company, is to help researchers assess a drug program’s prospects, identify biologically defined patient populations, and adjust clinical trial strategies as new information emerges.
Pathos AI says it has already used Foundry to expand its oncology pipeline through a series of strategic transactions over recent months, aiming to improve drug-candidate selection and identify patients most likely to benefit from treatment. That track record now includes four active assets: JSKN016, pocenbrodib, AZD4241 and DO-2.
Four Drugs, One AI-Steered Pipeline
JSKN016 is a first-in-class bispecific antibody-drug conjugate targeting TROP2 and HER3, cell-surface proteins frequently overexpressed in various epithelial cancers, and the company says it will prioritize moving the drug toward registrational studies. Pathos AI gained exclusive rights to develop and commercialize JSKN016 outside Greater China, according to MedCity News, and the drug became the fourth program folded into the company’s pipeline through Foundry, per Pathos AI’s own account of the deal.
Pocenbrodib is being developed for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, while AZD4241, an estrogen receptor-directed proteolysis-targeting chimera partnered with AstraZeneca, is aimed at ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. DO-2 is a MET kinase inhibitor rounding out the roster. MedCity News reported that Pathos AI’s agreement with AstraZeneca makes it responsible for AZD4241’s early clinical development, though financial terms of that deal were not disclosed.
Bristol Myers Squibb and Tempus AI Join the Neuroscience Push
Beyond oncology, Pathos AI and Bristol Myers Squibb also announced multi-year strategic collaborations with Bristol Myers Squibb and Tempus AI focused on Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological conditions, according to the Pathos AI statement. Tempus AI will build a de-identified neurological dataset drawn from hundreds of thousands of patients, which Pathos will license under a five-year, $55 million agreement, the company said.
As part of the arrangement, Bristol Myers Squibb gains non-exclusive strategic access to Foundry across its broader portfolio, along with three-year exclusive rights tied to neuroscience development programs, according to a separate Pathos AI release. Bristol Myers Squibb, based in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, focuses its research and development on oncology, hematology, immunology, cardiovascular disease and fibrosis, and relies on translational medicine and data analytics to guide drug development and identify patients likely to benefit from treatment.
A CEO With Two Decades in Precision Medicine
Iker Huerga, CEO of Pathos AI, said the capital will scale the company’s AI engine and move its programs toward clinical milestones meant to deliver therapies to the patient populations suited for them. Huerga also said Foundry has accelerated the identification of promising clinical assets and their integration into the company’s pipeline.
Huerga brings more than two decades of experience in machine learning, precision medicine and oncology drug development to the role. He began his career in cancer research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, later served as chief data scientist for oncology research and development at AstraZeneca, and held the role of executive vice president of life sciences strategy and real-world data at Tempus AI. He is also a three-time biotech founder with two corporate exits, including Da’at Technologies.
Riding a Wave of AI Drug-Development Funding
The new round builds on a rapid fundraising trajectory for the New York-based company. Pathos AI’s Series E follows a $365 million Series D completed in May 2025 and a $62 million Series C completed in October 2024, according to Fierce Biotech. The pace of that capital-raising reflects a broader appetite among investors for AI-driven drug development, with the fresh funding giving Pathos more firepower to advance its cancer drugs, as reported by Axios.
The scale of Pathos AI’s recent dealmaking underscores how aggressively it has been building out its pipeline. Earlier in 2026, the company agreed to pay a $125 million non-refundable upfront payment for rights to JSKN016, with potential milestone payments totaling up to $2.093 billion, according to the Pathos AI statement on that licensing agreement. With the Series E now closed, the company says it intends to put the new capital toward turning that AI-assembled pipeline into drugs that reach patients.
