AI Startup's Bold Bet to Outsmart Cancer With $2.8M

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-18

What if we could predict which cancer drug combinations will work before setting foot in a lab? That's the ambitious question behind Big Picture Bio, a London-based biotech startup that just stepped out of stealth with a combined funding round of €2.55 million—about $2.8 million at current exchange rates. The funding breaks down into a €1.75 million ($1.9 million) pre-Seed round co-led by Kadmos Capital and Exceptional Ventures, plus €815k ($900k) in non-dilutive support from Innovate UK's Investor Partnerships Programme. Gloucester Ventures and angel investor John White also joined the pre-Seed round. ### The Problem: Too Many Combinations, Too Few Labs Cancer isn't a single disease with a single target. It's a moving target that adapts and resists. That's why combinations of drugs often work better than single agents—but finding the right mix is like searching for a needle in a haystack the size of a galaxy. Consider this: a full pairwise screen of just 100 drugs at 100 doses would require roughly 50 million lab experiments. No physical lab on Earth can handle that scale. But Big Picture Bio's generative "world model" can search computationally in seconds. The company simulates how tumors, immune cells, and surrounding tissue interact. Then it identifies which drug combinations—and in what sequence—are most likely to hold off cancer resistance. ### Founders With Serious Pedigree CEO Dr. Kerstin Papenfuss and CTO Dr. Mark Hammond aren't newcomers. Before spinning out Big Picture Bio, both spent years at Deep Science Ventures (DSV). Papenfuss built and led DSV's therapeutics team, founding 12 therapeutics and enabling-technology companies. She previously held roles at LifeArc and the Cell & Gene Therapy Catapult. Hammond co-founded DSV and took it from €174k to a portfolio worth over €1.16 billion. He led its engineering work on agentic scientific discovery and was previously involved in licensing and investment at Imperial College, where spin-outs during his tenure included Hinge Health, Hark, and Monolith. The pair have worked together for seven years, tackling complex, evolving diseases. Their new venture is a culmination of that journey. ### Early Validation: Predicting Trial Failures Big Picture Bio says its predictive approach has already been tested against real clinical data. It correctly forecasted the failure of Regeneron's fianlimab trial. And ahead of the 2026 ASCO oncology conference, it posted 14 predictions—12 of which proved accurate. "Cancer is not one disease driven by one target, but we still develop drugs as if it were," says Dr. Papenfuss. "Combinations are how we beat it—and with more than 900 billion of them possible, no lab on earth can test its way to the right ones. That is the problem we built Big Picture Bio to solve: model the disease as the dynamic system it actually is, then design against it." ### From Computer Models to the Wet Lab The new funding will take Big Picture Bio's AI-designed cancer combination therapies out of the model and into the lab. The firm will initially focus on cancer and immune-mediated diseases, but its ultimate goal is to move beyond trial-and-error combination testing altogether. > "This funding takes our first designed combinations out of the model and into the lab." — Dr. Kerstin Papenfuss, CEO and co-founder The company's advisory team includes senior pharma expertise from AstraZeneca, Exscientia, and PhoreMost. That's a strong signal that the science is being taken seriously by people who know the industry. ### What This Means for the Future of Drug Development If Big Picture Bio's approach works, it could dramatically shorten the time and cost of finding effective cancer treatments. Instead of running millions of lab experiments, researchers could run millions of computational simulations—and then test only the most promising combinations in the real world. It's still early days. The company has a lot to prove. But with a differentiated AI model, a seasoned founding team, and fresh capital, Big Picture Bio is one to watch. The next few years will tell whether its predictions hold up in the clinic. For now, the startup is moving full speed ahead. And if it succeeds, it won't just change how we develop cancer drugs—it might change how we think about disease itself.