The Miles Wang AI startup currently in funding talks is the latest sign that investors are treating AI-powered drug discovery less like a speculative bet and more like a land grab. Wang, who joined OpenAI in 2024 after dropping out of Harvard’s computer science programme, is said to be in discussions for a valuation of around $2 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Miles Wang’s AI Startup and the Drug Repurposing Angle
What makes Wang’s reported direction interesting is the focus. Sources told TechCrunch that his venture may concentrate on finding new uses for existing drugs, including medicines that previously failed in clinical trials. The logic is straightforward: FDA-approved drugs have already cleared the safety hurdle, so repurposing them can shorten the path to revenue considerably compared with developing a new compound from the ground up.
Wang co-authored research at OpenAI on how AI models can automate and accelerate scientific discovery, so the pivot to applied life sciences isn’t a stretch. Whether a $2 billion valuation is justified before a single drug candidate has been named is, perhaps, a question for later.
The Funding Wave Behind AI Drug Discovery
Wang isn’t operating in a vacuum. Chai Discovery, a two-year-old startup with a similar pedigree (co-founder Josh Meier also passed through OpenAI as a researcher), announced it raised $400 million in a Series C at a $3.8 billion valuation. That figure is nearly triple the $1.3 billion valuation Chai held just seven months earlier, per The Next Web.
The valuation climb is steep even by current AI standards. Chai closed a $70 million Series A in mid-2025, then a $130 million round at $1.3 billion in December 2025, then more than tripled to $3.8 billion within months. The company uses generative AI to design antibodies and proteins tuned to a disease target before they reach a lab, and counts Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Novartis among its pharma partners.
CEO Joshua Meier described the technology’s commercial traction in terms reported by Tech Funding News: ‘already unlocking progress for our partners, enabling them to design better molecules, move faster against difficult targets, and take on challenges that traditional discovery methods have struggled to solve.’
The New York Times quoted Index partner Nina Achadjian on the broader thesis: ‘I believe that life sciences is going to be one of the most consequential and biggest-impact applications of A.I.’ Chai’s four co-founders are Joshua Meier, Matthew McPartlon, Jacques Boitreaud, and Jack Dent.
Then there is the London-based Isomorphic Labs, founded by Alphabet in 2021 as a Google DeepMind spinout, which raised a $2.1 billion Series B in May. According to Isomorphic Labs’ own announcement, the round was led by Thrive Capital, with Alphabet and GV continuing as backers, and MGX, Temasek, CapitalG, and the UK Sovereign AI Fund joining as new investors.
The company’s core tool is a drug design engine called IsoDDE, which incorporates AlphaFold 3 to predict molecular structures and interactions. Proceeds are earmarked for advancing IsoDDE and moving Isomorphic’s in-house drug pipeline into the clinic, per Fierce Biotech.
Young Founders, Large Cheques, Familiar Script
Wang joined OpenAI in 2024 after leaving Harvard, where he was studying for a computer science degree. The pattern of investors backing founders who left elite universities without graduating is well-worn by now, and the script here follows it closely: ex-OpenAI researcher, AI for life sciences, nine-figure valuation before the product ships.
That is not a reason to dismiss the Miles Wang AI startup out of hand. Drug repurposing backed by serious computational tools has a genuine rationale, and the companies already funded in this space are working with major pharmaceutical partners on real problems. The question the market will eventually force an answer to is whether the valuations are being set by the science or by the postcodes on the founders’ CVs.
The next data point to watch: whether Wang’s funding discussions close, and at what valuation relative to the $2 billion figure currently being reported.
