UST and ThinkBio.Ai Forge Strategic Alliance to Accelerate AI-Driven Innovation in Biopharma and Healthcare

UST, a leading digital transformation solutions company, has partnered with ThinkBio.Ai®, an AI-powered solutions provider for biopharmaceutical and healthcare organizations. This strategic partnership will empower UST to more efficiently leverage its expertise in digital transformation and advanced solutions to complement ThinkBio.Ai’s innovative AI-powered R&D capabilities. Together, the companies will deliver transformative solutions that accelerate AI transformation journeys and improve outcomes for biopharma and healthcare organizations worldwide.

Leveraging advanced in-house expertise in oncology, immunology, neurology, and cardiology, ThinkBio.Ai has developed a suite of AI-powered solutions to address critical challenges across pharma and biotech preclinical and clinical R&D pipelines. These include data-driven strategies to identify the most optimal treatments, salvaging failed drugs through repurposing or combination therapies, and improving clinical trial success through biomarker-driven patient stratification and digital twin-enabled trial matching.

In addition, ThinkBio.Ai’s AI-enhanced Research Co-pilot (R-COP™) utilizes AI to extend the existing Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) capabilities. Fully interoperable with existing infrastructure, this next-generation tool transforms routine processes into dynamic, insight-driven research operations. These solutions are designed to support biopharma companies and healthcare providers in accelerating innovation and improving patient care.

ThinkBio.Ai’s biological and clinical insights are powered by experts and delivered through the BioThinkHub™ data platform, drawing from expertly curated data and knowledge from proprietary and public data sources.

“This partnership will bring our unique AI and knowledge-based transformation products and solutions for Research and Discovery (R&D) to UST’s focus on digital transformation capabilities and building Gen AI solutions for different industries, including the life science sector. Together, we will build custom ecosystems to help clients and partners stay ahead in a well-regulated, dynamic, and competitive landscape,” said Pradeep Palazhi, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, ThinkBio.Ai®.

“We will integrate ThinkBio.Ai’s AI-powered R&D transformation solutions with UST’s strengths in digital transformation and Gen AI across life sciences – pharma, biotech, and medical devices. This strategic collaboration will drive innovation, accelerate time-to-value, and deliver measurable impact across the research and development value chain for our customers,” said Anu Koshy, Life Science cluster leader, UST.

IAN-Led Round Injects ₹6.5 Cr into Lamark Biotech to Tackle Cold-Chain Gaps in BioPharma

• Lamark Biotech Raises ₹6.5 Crore in Pre-Series A Round Led by IAN Group, Powered by BioAngels

Lamark Biotech, an innovation-led biopharma startup, raised ₹6.5 crore in a Pre-Series A round led by IAN Group, including IAN Alpha Fund, powered by BioAngels, Dr. Vinayender Tulla, Dr. Nita Roy, and Mr. Venkataraman KNK, domain experts of IAN’s angel investors led the round.

Founded in 2018 by Dr. Vaibhav Bhatia, a entrepreneur and Biochemist by training, Lamark Biotech is reimagining drug delivery for chronic and life-altering diseases. Its proprietary ProteoStrong™ platform enables the stabilization of fragile protein-based drugs, such as insulin, monoclonal antibodies, and enzymes, without altering their molecular structure. Lamark addresses a critical gap in the biologics ecosystem: reducing the cold-chain dependency.

Vaibhav Bhatia, Founder and CEO of Lamark Biotech, said, “This funding round with IAN marks a turning point for Lamark, but also for the patients across the planet. We’re accelerating our thermostable insulin program and expanding ProteoStrong™ to more critical therapeutics using this resource. Our priority is clear- make safe and high-efficacy biologics for all. We believe, ‘if it is not accessible, it not a medicine”

Padmaja Ruparel, Co-founder, IAN Group, said, “Investment in Lamark represents IAN’s investment strategy to invest and grow innovations that solve real problems. The solution is critical in low-resource environments, with Lamark's thermostable biologics which can make critical treatments accessible at a low cost for millions of people, both in India and globally.”

The Ahmedabad-headquartered startup, leveraging R&D base of Venture Center, NCL-innovation park in Pune, is advancing a new class of temperature-resilient biologics that retain potency across extreme conditions, ideal for underserved regions where cold storage infrastructure is limited.

With its lead program, InsulinStrong, Lamark is targeting the ₹4,000 crore Indian insulin market and intends to expand across Southeast Asia and the UAE. expanding its platform into diabetic eye disease and cancer immunotherapy. In the next 24 months, it plans to file new international patents, begin early clinical trials, and build partnerships with pharma companies, CDMOs, and global health agencies.

Amid growing global efforts to enhance healthcare access and strengthen drug delivery infrastructure, Lamark Biotech is strategically positioned to lead the next generation of biopharmaceutical innovation through its robust, cold-chain-independent solutions.

About Lamark Biotech:

Lamark Biotech is an innovation-driven biopharmaceutical startup focused on developing proprietary formulations of biologics for chronic and life-altering diseases. The company’s core expertise lies in stabilizing complex therapeutic proteins and peptides to improve their shelf-life, efficacy, and patient convenience. With a strong emphasis on global healthcare, it addresses critical gaps in formulation technology, including ultra-stable, temperature-resilient drug delivery systems for indications such as diabetes, ophthalmic disorders, and cancer immunotherapy.

About IAN Group:

IAN Group is the country’s single largest platform for seed and early stage investment platform with IAN Angel Network, BioAngels and IAN Fund I and IAN Alpha Fund enabling entrepreneurs to raise from Rs. 50 lakhs to Rs. 50 crores. The platform brings money, mentoring from successful entrepreneurs and global market access. The platform is sector-agnostic and has funded innovative start-ups across 19 sectors in India and 7 other countries, thereby growing the global footprint of companies. IAN has been listed by Forbes as one of iconic business and economic events of Independent India, over 75 years along with LIC, NASSCOM, RBI, Naukri.com amongst others.

Hillchol®: Bharat Biotech’s Oral Cholera Vaccine Demonstrates Success in Phase III Clinical Studies

Bharat Biotech’s Oral Cholera Vaccine Hillchol® has demonstrated against both Ogawa and Inaba serotypes, proving non-inferior in healthy Indian adults and children, supporting its potential as an effective OCV.

The above study findings have been published in the ScienceDirect, Vaccine journal 126998 to assess a double-blind, randomized phase III clinical trial to evaluate safety, immunogenicity, non-inferiority & lot-to-lot consistency of single component oral cholera vaccine Hillchol® in comparison to a comparator vaccine in a diverse participant group of 1,800 individuals, from infants to adults, across 10 clinical sites in India. In this study, participants were divided into three age groups: adults over 18 years, children aged 5 to under 18 years, and infants aged 1 to under 5 years. They were randomized in a 3:1 ratio to receive either Hillchol® or a comparator vaccine.

The primary endpoint focused on the proportion of participants achieving >4-fold increase in vibriocidal antibody titres against Ogawa and Inaba serotypes 14 days after two doses. While secondary endpoints included Geometric Mean Titre (GMT) measurements and safety.

Key highlights from the findings:

• Robust Immunogenicity: Hillchol® demonstrated a greater than 4-fold rise in vibriocidal antibodies against both Ogawa (68.3%) and Inaba (69.5%) serotypes, proving non-inferiority to licensed vaccines.
• Strong Safety Profile: Adverse events were mild and comparable between the two vaccines. Broad Age Coverage: The vaccine was well-tolerated and immunogenic across all age groups—including infants (≥1 year), children, and adults.

"This publication reaffirms our commitment to advancing vaccines built on rigorous research, thorough clinical trials, and reliable clinical data. It highlights our continued commitment to providing affordable, effective, and accessible vaccines for the populations who need them the most,” said Dr. Krishna Ella, Executive Chairman of Bharat Biotech.

Dr. Ella added, “Cholera is a vaccine-preventable disease that has faced a surge in outbreaks along with a huge shortage of vaccines. The new generation Oral Cholera Vaccine Hillchol®, featuring a simplified single stable O1 Hikojima strain, inducing robust antibodies against both Ogawa and Inaba serotypes, aims to enhance production efficiency and affordability, particularly in lower- and middle-income countries where waterborne diseases continue to pose serious health threats.”

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingesting food or water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae bacteria. Studies have estimated that 2.86 million cases and 95,000 deaths occur annually.

HillChol® Pack

With Hillchol®, Bharat Biotech strengthens its commitment to combating global infectious diseases through innovation and clinical excellence. As cholera continues to threaten communities lacking clean water and sanitation, Hillchol® provides a streamlined, scalable solution designed to support global health programs and ensure equitable access to life-saving vaccines.

Global demand for OCVs is close to 100 million doses a year, and given that only one manufacturer supplies them, there is a global shortage. Bharat Biotech's facilities in Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar have a capacity to produce up to 200 million doses of Hillchol®.

Published in the ScienceDirect, Vaccine journal: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X25002956?via%3Dihub

About Bharat Biotech:

Bharat Biotech has established an excellent track record of innovation with more than 145 global patents, a wide product portfolio of more than 19 vaccines, 4 biotherapeutics, registrations in more than 125 countries, and the World Health Organization (WHO) Pre-qualifications. Located in Genome Valley in Hyderabad, India, a hub for the global biotech industry, Bharat Biotech has built a world-class vaccine & bio-therapeutics, research & product development, Bio-Safety Level 3 manufacturing, and vaccine supply and distribution. Having delivered more than 9 billion doses of vaccines worldwide, Bharat Biotech continues to lead innovation and has developed vaccines for influenza H1N1, Rotavirus, Japanese Encephalitis (JENVAC®), Rabies, Chikungunya, Zika, Cholera, and the world’s first tetanus-toxoid conjugated vaccine for Typhoid.

Bharat’s commitment to global social innovation programs and public-private partnerships resulted in introducing path-breaking WHO pre-qualified vaccines BIOPOLIO®, ROTAVAC®, ROTAVAC 5D®, and Typbar TCV® combatting polio, rotavirus, typhoid infections, respectively. HILLCHOL®, an oral vaccine against cholera, was launched in 2024. The acquisition of Chiron Behring Vaccines has positioned Bharat Biotech as the world's largest rabies vaccine manufacturer with Chirorab® and Indirab®. To learn more about Bharat Biotech, visit www.bharatbiotech.com.

Accenture Invests in Turbine, That is Building a Platform for Interpreting Human Biology Using AI

Accenture has made a strategic investment through Accenture Ventures in Turbine, a company that specializes in predictive simulation. This investment is aimed at accelerating the use of AI-powered cell simulations in biopharma research and development.

Turbine's core technology, the Simulated Cell™ platform, leverages machine learning to model molecular interactions within and around cells. This allows for virtual experiments that can reveal mechanisms driving diseases and responses to therapies. The platform is designed to perform virtual experiments at a scale nearly impossible in the physical world, thus providing valuable insights into biological systems.

This collaboration through the investment is expected to help global biopharma companies uncover hidden biological insights, which could guide and accelerate key drug development workstreams. It's particularly focused on uncovering promising drug targets, selecting patient populations most likely to benefit from therapy, and identifying combination therapy regimens.

The investment reflects Accenture's commitment to supporting technology and digital capabilities that drive innovation in AI-based drug discovery, with the ultimate goal of enhancing patient care and providing more effective treatments.

Turbine is the latest company to join Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, an engagement and investment program focused on working with companies that create or apply disruptive enterprise technologies. Project Spotlight offers extensive access to Accenture’s domain expertise and its enterprise clients, helping startups harness creativity and deliver on the promise of their technology.

Earlier in March this year, Accenture, through Accenture Ventures, had invested in Sanctuary AI, a company specializing in the development of AI-powered humanoid robots.

Besides Turbine, other digital simulation companies in Project Spotlight include QuantHealth, Virtonomy and Ocean Genomics.

“Since most unsolved complex diseases are heterogenous, progress in utilizing AI for drug discovery is hindered by ethical and technological limitations in sourcing deep and diverse ground truth data. To bridge this gap, we need a toolkit that can learn fundamental rules of biology on in vitro experiments and apply to patients that it has never seen before. Turbine's Simulated Cells can be engineered at scale to represent the heterogeneity of complex human disease better than currently available wet lab experimental models, which are inherently biased towards representing certain disease types and hardly scalable,” said Szabolcs Nagy, co-founder and CEO of Turbine.

“By tapping into Accenture’s expertise, we hope to expand our market reach and augment our simulation platform in order to benefit the whole biopharma industry by ensuring that the next experiment is always the correct one", Nagy added.

Founded in 2015 by Kristof Szalay, Ph.D., Daniel Veres, M.D., Ph.D., Szabolcs Nagy and Ivan Fekete, M.D., Turbine is based in London, UK, with offices in Budapest, Hungary and Cambridge, UK. The team’s vision is to overcome the current limitations in identifying oncology treatments with true patient benefit by combining molecular biology and interpretable machine learning.

Turbine’s latest investment round (Series A) was closed in June 2023 which was €5.5 million from MassMutual Ventures. Prior to this, in 2022, Turbine raised finding which was co-led by MSD (Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway NJ, USA) Global Health Innovation Fund (GHIF) and Mercia Asset Management, who were joined by both new and existing investors Delin Ventures, Day One Capital, Accel, Atlantic Labs, XTX Ventures, o2h Ventures and Boston Millenia Partners.

To Support Bio-pharma Innovations, Govt Supported National Facility Opens at Venture Center, Pune

The Center for Biopharma Analysis (CBA) supported by the National Biopharma Mission (NBM) of Department of Biotechnology (DBT)- Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) at Pune-based technology business incubator, Venture Center was inaugurated virtually by Secretary, DBT, Dr Renu Swarup.

CBA will provide high-quality analytical services for biopharmaceutical developers and manufacturers. This center is envisioned to become a resource center for structural and functional characterization of biologicals and biopharmaceuticals that will create long lasting value for bioentrepreneurs and industry.

Inaugurating the facility via video conference, Dr Renu Swarup, Secretary, DBT, said that she expects that the CBA will play a pivotal role in supporting biopharma innovations from academic and government research labs, startups and many Indian companies with not only high-quality analytical characterization but also advise on studies needed for regulatory approvals. This can help speed up the development process.

Also speaking on the occasion, Prof AK Nangia, Director, CSIR-NCL highlighted how NCL is keen to contribute to the large molecule therapeutics revolution waiting to happen in India as it did for small molecule therapeutics in 1970-80s. Mr Prasanta Biswal, CEO of International Biotech Park Limited, Pune said that IBPL is happy to have contributed CSR support for the CBA infrastructure development and looks forward to working closely with Venture Center and BIRAC in positioning the Pune Knowledge Cluster for excellence in biopharma and medtech development and manufacturing.

The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), under the Ministry of Science & Technology, promotes and accelerates the development of biotechnology in India, including growth and application of biotechnology in the areas of agriculture, healthcare, animal sciences, environment and industry.

About Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) , it is a not-for-profit Section 8, Schedule B, Public Sector Enterprise, set up by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India as an Interface Agency to strengthen and empower the emerging Biotech enterprise to undertake strategic research and innovation, addressing nationally relevant product development needs

About National Biopharma Mission:

The Industry-Academia Collaborative Mission of Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt of India for accelerating discovery research to early development for Biopharmaceuticals approved by the Cabinet for a total cost US$ 250 million and 50% co-funded by the World Bank is being implemented at Biotechnology Research Assistance Council (BIRAC). This program is dedicated to deliver affordable products to the nation with an aim to improve the health standards of India’s population. Vaccines, medical devices and diagnostics and biotherapeutics are few of its most important domains, besides, strengthening the clinical trial capacity and building technology transfer capabilities in the country.

About Venture Center: Entrepreneurship Development Center (Venture Center) – a CSIR initiative – is a Section 25 company hosted by the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. Venture Center strives to nucleate and nurture technology and knowledge-based enterprises by leveraging the scientific and engineering competencies of the institutions in the Pune region in India. The Venture Center is a technology business incubator supported by the Department of Science & Technology’s National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (DST-NSTEDB). Venture Center focuses on technology enterprises offering products and services exploiting scientific expertise in the areas of materials, chemicals and biological sciences & engineering. For more information, visit: http://www.venturecenter.co.in/

About CBA: Center for BioPharma Analysis (CBA) is an initiative of Venture Center supported by the National BioPharma Mission, BIRAC (Government of India). The Venture Center is a technology business incubator hosted by CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. It is a state-of-art GLP compliant facility with high-end instrumentation and industry-linked personals provides globally acceptable analysis of biopharmaceuticals. It provides open access cutting-edge technologies for Biopharmaceutical Analysis and would emerge as resource center for Characterization of Biopharmaceuticals. The facility aims to cater all academics, small to medium size biosimilar developers through-out the India and the world. For more information, visit: https://www.venturecenter.co.in/biopharma/

Bangalore-based Biopharma Startup Bugworks Raises $7.5 Mn from Japan-based VCs and Acquipharma Holdings

Bugworks Research Inc, a global biopharma start-up designing novel broad-spectrum antibiotics, announced the completion of a $7.5M financing, led by University of Tokyo Edge Capital (UTEC) Japan and Global Brain Corporation (Global Brain) Japan, along with Acquipharma Holdings, South-Africa. The company has raised $19M till date and has 3one4 Capital as an existing investor.

This investment enables Bugworks to complete Phase 1 studies for its GYROX series Intravenous drug candidate and advance an Oral lead towards clinical development. Bugworks' drug candidate, a dual-target gyrase-topoisomerase inhibitor, supported by CARB-X since 2017, is a novel broad-spectrum agent targeting critical bacterial infections implicated in serious hospital, community and biothreat indications.

"UTEC led the Bugworks Series A in 2018, as we identified Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the global issues of mankind, and facilitated Bugworks' collaboration with Japanese ecosystem. Bugworks has thoroughly impressed us with their scientific rigour, pre-clinical data, business development progress and commitment to saving lives. We are now proud to double-down our investment in Bugworks," said Tomotaka Goji, Managing Partner & President, UTEC.

"As witnessed with COVID-19, infectious diseases are threatening human existence. AMR is a serious issue and Global Brain regards this as a big unmet medical need. We are proud to partner with Bugworks to bring highly differentiated solutions in AMR to the market. We consider India to be an important region, both from innovation and market perspective and are hence accelerating our investment activity in India," said Yasuhiko Yurimoto, Founder-CEO & General Partner Global Brain.

"This new financing is an endorsement of our team and differentiated AMR assets, as we bring reputed global investors to aid our mission of pandemic preparedness by defeating superbug infections," said Dr. Anand Anandkumar, CEO of Bugworks.

Investors Profile

UTEC is a Tokyo-based early-stage VC with over $500M AUM with 11 successful IPOs and 11 M&As. UTEC invests in seed/early-stage startups that solve global issues of humankind using profound science and technology.

Global Brain is a VC firm based in Tokyo with offices in San Francisco, London, Seoul, Singapore and Jakarta. With over $1.5B assets under management, Global Brain has invested in 200+ startups selectively from seed/early to pre-IPO startups and achieved 17 IPOs and 48 M&As.

Acquipharma Holdings is a South-Africa based life-science boutique investment fund, who've invested in Bugworks since 2016.

www.bugworksresearch.com