🧬 Why Drug Discovery Takes 15 Years (And How AI Cuts It to 3) | Andrey Doronichev (Part 4/4)
The Biotech Startups Podcast
00:00
The First-Generation AI Drug Companies and Timing
Andrey reflects on early AI drug companies, skepticism in the industry, and why recent AI advances matter now.
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🧬 The Biotech Startups Podcast is powered by Excedr—helping life science startups accelerate R&D and commercialization with founder-friendly equipment leasing. Skip the upfront costs, stay lean, and focus on breakthrough science.
As a TBSP listener, you can get exclusive perks through Excedr’s partner network—special savings, promotions, and more. Explore these offers today: https://www.excedr.com/partners.
“If our real mission is to truly help companies get drugs to patients faster and cheaper, the amount of complexity we have to solve goes way beyond science.”
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Jon Chee talks with Andrey Doronichev about his leap from tech at YouTube and Google to launching OPTIC and reinventing it as BIOPTIC, an AI-powered drug discovery startup.
Andrey shares the ups and downs of projects like AIorNot, the pivotal link between big data and drug development, and how “agentic AI” now drives BIOPTIC’s rapid progress—proving that real biotech breakthroughs require humility, adaptability, and big-picture thinking.
Key topics covered:
- Entrepreneurial Pivots: Navigating market shifts, spin-offs, and bold new directions
- Large-Scale Data Screening: Leveraging AI to rapidly unlock drug discovery
- Holistic Innovation: Fusing science, business, and regulation through agentic AI
- AI in Drug Discovery: Accelerating screening, evaluation, and clinical workflows
- Personal Reflections: Staying mission-driven, prioritizing health, and leading with humility
If you enjoy The Biotech Startups Podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with your friends. Thanks for listening.
Subscribe to the Podcast:
Find our guest, Andrey Doronichev, at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doronichev/
Website: https://bioptic.io/
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee
Learn more about Excedr:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/
Website: https://www.excedr.com
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:
Website: https://flow.page/kyojin
Resources & Articles:
AlphaFold: https://deepmind.google/science/alphafold/
Enamine REAL Database: https://enamine.net/compound-collections/real-compounds/real-database
Schrödinger (computational chemistry & drug discovery software): https://www.schrodinger.com/platform/
Companies, Universities, & People mentioned:
OPTIC: https://bioptic.io/
Google: https://www.google.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/
AIorNot: https://aiornot.com/
Insilico Medicine: https://insilico.com/
Atomwise: https://www.atomwise.com/
BenevolentAI: https://www.benevolent.com/
Schrödinger: https://www.schrodinger.com/
PureTech: https://puretechhealth.com/
David Thacker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thackerd/
Anna Kostikova: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annakostikova/?originalSubdomain=nl
Eric Elenko: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-elenko-560b1b44/
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:45 OPTIC’s Market Collapse and AIorNot Spinout
07:02 Startup Pivots and Lessons from Tech History
09:42 TED Inspiration: Moving OPTIC to Drug Discovery
10:36 Winning a Kaggle Protein Function Challenge
15:20 Pivot to BiOptic and New AI Mission
16:35 Surfing Metaphors and Startup Timing
21:22 BiOptic Platform’s Early Technology Roadmap
26:18 Research Collaborations and Platform Expansion
36:29 Holistic, Agentic AI Vision for Biotech
46:55 Search/Evaluation Agent and Industry Strategy
55:50 Surviving Pivots, Focusing the Next Phase
59:15 Shout-outs, Mentors, and Advice
01:02:45 Outro
The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.
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