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TherapiAI Closes Seed Round to Launch Global AI Drug Discovery Expansion
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Leveraging AI Agents to Enhance Pharmaceutical Efficiency, Reduce Costs, and Shorten R&D Timelines.
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Based in Taiwan, Expanding to Japan: Creating a Global Platform for Pharma Digital Transformation.
AI drug discovery startup TherapiAI (formerly Akousist) announced today the completion of its Seed funding round, led by Cherubic Ventures. Concurrently, the company has officially rebranded as ‘TherapiAI Innovations’ to mark its strategic entry into the field of ‘Intelligent Agents for Biopharma.’ Combining ‘Therapy’ and ‘AI,’ the new name symbolizes the company’s commitment to leveraging AI Agent technology to enhance pharmaceutical process efficiency, reduce costs, compress development timelines, and elevate decision-making accuracy for pharmaceutical companies.
Founded in 2018, TherapiAI unites algorithm specialists with medical experts in regenerative medicine and pharmaceutical manufacturing. By fusing AI technology with real-world industrial demands, we have pioneered a new pharmaceutical model of ‘Expert-AI Co-creation,’ dedicated to enhancing both the speed and precision of decision-making.
For a long time, the true implementation of AI in the pharmaceutical field has been difficult, mainly due to highly restricted operational conditions. Vast amounts of experimental data are scattered across reports, various instruments, and Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) with inconsistent formats and loose structures, making drug process optimization difficult.
This is particularly true in large molecule drug and cell therapy processes, where high variability and complex parameters make traditional statistical methods ineffective. Consequently, even slight deviations can lead to high costs associated with experimental failure.
Furthermore, most general-purpose AI platforms lack a deep understanding of the pharmaceutical industry and real-world scenarios. They are unable to provide effective solutions for highly specialized challenges such as cell induction, target cell screening, protein culture process optimization, and GMP compliance documentation.
Additionally, due to strict regulatory and cybersecurity requirements, pharmaceutical companies must ensure that all models and data access are traceable, auditable, and controllable, making the adoption of external tools difficult.
The TherapiAI platform integrates Large Language Models (LLMs) with proprietary, deployable AI agents, specifically designed for pharmaceutical production lines. Personnel can issue commands using natural language, allowing the system to automatically retrieve cross-system data, identify high-potential cell lines, and sort samples according to SOPs.
This enables AI to move beyond mere data analysis and integrate directly into the production line to execute workflows, effectively reshaping the operational model of pharmaceutical plants.
Currently, TherapiAI has partnered with Taiwanese CDMO facilities to establish cell selection models using AI agents. This collaboration has helped clients reduce raw material costs by 90% while significantly cutting down on manpower and procedural trial-and-error.
Expanding from Taiwan, the company is now entering the Japanese market, collaborating with local compliant factories and academic institutions. We are driving the establishment of smart pharmaceutical manufacturing sites to further validate the deployment potential of AI agents across diverse pharmaceutical scenarios.
Beyond its applications in the pharmaceutical field, TherapiAI has also entered the field of precision regenerative medicine. In collaboration with Chia Tieng Biotech and General Biologicals Corporation (4186), the company is developing mesenchymal stem cell and exosome products, demonstrating the cross-disciplinary potential of AI agents in digital health and smart therapy scenarios.
Building on Taiwan-Japan collaboration, TherapiAI aims to advance the application of AI agents in pharmaceutical CDMOs and deepen technology deployment with Japanese pharmaceutical companies. TherapiAI has already established a Japanese subsidiary and is based at the LINK J biotech startup hub in Tokyo.
Simultaneously, the company is preparing to launch research collaborations with Japanese Cell Processing Centers (CPCs) and academic institutions, such as Kobe University and Chiba University. These initiatives will lay the foundation for expansion into the European market, as TherapiAI strives to become a key platform for the global digital transformation of the pharmaceutical industry.
