Big Picture Bio's AI Bet: Can It Predict Cancer's Next Move?

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-18

Imagine trying to guess which of 900 billion possible drug combinations will actually stop cancer. That's not a hypothetical—it's the daily reality for oncology researchers. And it's exactly the problem a London-based startup called Big Picture Bio is tackling with a bold AI approach. The company just stepped out of stealth with a combined funding round of €2.55 million (about $2.8 million). The round includes a €1.75 million ($1.9 million) pre-Seed co-led by Kadmos Capital and Exceptional Ventures, plus €815,000 ($900,000) in non-dilutive support from Innovate UK's Investor Partnerships Programme. Gloucester Ventures and angel investor John White also chipped in. ### The Big Idea: Simulating Cancer Like a Weather Model At its core, Big Picture Bio is building a generative "world model" that simulates how tumors, immune cells, and surrounding tissue interact. Think of it as a flight simulator for cancer—but instead of pilots, it trains drug combinations. The goal? Predict which sequences of therapies are most likely to outsmart cancer resistance. The founders, CEO Dr. Kerstin Papenfuss and CTO Dr. Mark Hammond, aren't new to this. They spent years at Deep Science Ventures, where Papenfuss built and led the therapeutics team, founding 12 companies. Hammond co-founded DSV and grew its portfolio from €174,000 to over €1.16 billion (roughly $1.3 billion). They've worked together for seven years, tackling complex diseases. Why does this matter? A full pairwise screen of just 100 drugs at 100 doses would require about 50 million lab experiments. That's physically impossible. But Big Picture Bio's models can search that space computationally in seconds. ### Early Results That Raise Eyebrows The company claims 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 proved accurate. > "Cancer is not one disease driven by one target, but 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. She added that the funding will take their first designed combinations "out of the model and into the lab." Initially, they'll focus on cancer and immune-mediated diseases, but the long-term vision is to move beyond trial-and-error combination testing altogether. The advisory team reads like a who's who of pharma: Dr. Laura Rosenberg and Dr. Duncan Young from AstraZeneca, Dr. Garry Pairaudeau (former CTO of Exscientia), and Dr. Christian Dillon (CSO of PhoreMost). ### What's Next for Big Picture Bio? The fresh capital will fund wet-lab validation of their AI-designed therapies. If it works, this could be a blueprint for how we develop combination drugs—not by brute force, but by smart simulation. For now, all eyes are on whether Big Picture Bio can turn computational predictions into real-world treatments. If they do, it won't just be a win for the company—it could change how we fight cancer.