AI Startup's Bold Bet on Cancer Combinations Raises $2.7M

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-18

### London Startup Emerges from Stealth with $2.7M to Tackle Cancer's Toughest Challenge Big Picture Bio, a London-based biotech startup, just stepped out of stealth with a combined funding round of €2.55 million (about $2.7 million). They're using AI to design combination therapies for cancer and other complex diseases. It's a big problem, and they're betting that computers can solve what labs can't. The funding breaks down into a €1.75 million pre-Seed round co-led by Kadmos Capital and Exceptional Ventures, plus €815k 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 Team Behind the Science Founded by CEO Dr. Kerstin Papenfuss and CTO Dr. Mark Hammond, Big Picture Bio has built a generative "world model" that simulates how tumors, immune cells, and surrounding tissue interact. The goal? Identify which drug combinations, and in what sequence, are most likely to hold off cancer resistance. Both founders spent years at Deep Science Ventures. Papenfuss led DSV's therapeutics team, founding 12 therapeutics and enabling-technology companies. Hammond co-founded DSV and grew it from €174k to a €1.16 billion+ portfolio. They've worked together for seven years, building companies that tackle complex, evolving diseases. ### Why Cancer Combinations Matter Cancer isn't one disease driven by one target. Yet we still develop drugs as if it were. "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," said Dr. Papenfuss. A full pairwise screen of just 100 drugs at 100 doses would require roughly 50 million lab experiments. No physical screen can reach that scale. But Big Picture Bio's models can search computationally in seconds. That's the power of AI when applied to one of drug development's hardest problems: predicting how complex clinical trials will actually behave. ### Early Wins and Expert Backing The company says its predictive approach has already been tested against real clinical data. They correctly forecasted the failure of Regeneron's fianlimab trial. And ahead of the 2026 ASCO oncology conference, they posted 14 predictions – 12 proved accurate. Their advisory team includes senior pharma experts: Dr. Laura Rosenberg (Director of Target Validation at AstraZeneca), Dr. Duncan Young (Head of Search and Evaluation, Oncology Business Development & Licensing at AstraZeneca), Dr. Garry Pairaudeau (former CTO of Exscientia and CEO of DaltonTx), and Dr. Christian Dillon (Chief Scientific Officer at PhoreMost). ### What's Next Big Picture Bio will use the funding to take its AI-designed cancer combination therapies from computer models into the wet lab. They'll initially focus on cancer and immune-mediated diseases, but the ultimate aim 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," said Dr. Papenfuss. It's a step toward a future where we design treatments based on what's most likely to work in patients – not just what we can test. > "I had the privilege of working closely with Kerstin and Mark at the very beginning of Deep Science Ventures, and saw first-hand the determination, conviction and sheer resolve they bring to building ambitious, scalable businesses." – Remy Kesrouani, Managing Partner, Kadmos Capital For those following EU Inc news and European startup incorporation, Big Picture Bio's emergence is a sign of the continent's growing strength in AI-driven biotech. With backing from UK and European investors, it's a reminder that innovation doesn't need to cross the Atlantic to find success.