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Insecure Much?
Company releases news of their $10M funding. Then things go off the rails, because they immediately claim an $807M valuation.
If this was their only funding round to date, the very broad strokes of investment logic might lead you to presume they sold 1.2% of the company, because that’s commonly how valuation of private companies is derived - from how much people paid for the latest chunk.
But no.
Instead this outfit hired a third party valuation company who told them it was worth $807M, completely ignoring a firm data point in their own funding round.
That junk valuation number is already based on hand-waving and not much else. But then they go on to say that while this hired valuation company said $807M, some people within their own company think it’s more like $5 BILLION.
Good lord. Has there ever been such a desperate cry for validation than these people screaming at the top of their lungs about how much they are worth?
Pitiful.
Alaya
New cell therapy company launched and despite presumably knowing very much about the cell therapy business, they decided it would make sense to instead have ChatGPT answer cell therapy questions on their behalf.
That ain’t clever, that’s just lazy.
AI (2)
Let's keep rolling with the AI.
Not often are the biotech AI companies so self-aware as to have a menu item labeled “What is AI”. This particular one gives a little history lesson and ends up pretty much explaining it as a computer that has been fed information which can then be used to make predictions at a later time.
So, an algorithm. Which has underpinned computing for many decades.
This is yet another example of AI for the sake of it. The specific product they are working on is intended to monitor pH and conductivity, which are two very easy to monitor values. Normally measurements like this are fed into software that was pre-programmed to spit out helpful information. But no, that wasn’t good enough. We need AI!!!!!!
Spoiler: We don’t need AI. We just need a simple computer program. But by all means, make it more difficult. That's just what America's health system needs - more complexity.
AI (3)
Endpoints did a little rundown on how the first generation of AI-based companies has done in the clinic.
Conclusion: Not good.
As with every new biotech angle, the participants were talking crazy at the outset. In this case they were expecting to have discovered 100 clinical candidates within 10 years which would have been an order of magnitude greater than the usual way of doing things.
That was 10 years ago. So, how’d they fare?
Four. Four products in the clinic after a decade. Which is about normal for regular old drug discovery methods.
But just you wait – this next generation of AI drug discovery companies is going to change everything.
Team Roast - Porcelain Ticket
If Charlie Bucket’s lazy Grandpa Joe were alive and looking for a source of income, he may consider web development. He could do that from a bed which he shares with three other incapacitated senior citizens (that is until chocolate is on offer, at which point his withered legs will magically spring to life and propel him around the room effortlessly)
No doubt Grandpa Joe would be stealing WiFi to do this work. And being such an unmitigated jerk, he would probably design a biotech company’s team page much like THIS.
The horror.
If you’re still struggling for Halloween costume ideas, how about going as the most vile film character in history.
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