Medra, a startup that programmes robots with artificial intelligence to conduct biological experiments, has raised $52 million in funding. The company plans to use the capital to build one of the largest autonomous laboratories in the United States. The AI-powered robotic system is designed to speed up drug discovery by automating and improving biological experiments. No further details about the funding round, investors, or valuation were disclosed.

Medra raises $52M, partners with Genentech. Genentech will leverage Medra's Physical AI, Scientific AI and robotics into its lab systems to accelerate drug discovery. Medra, a company developing Physical AI Scientists, has secured $52 million in Series A funding and is partnering with biotechnology company Genentech. Human Capital led the round, with participation from existing investors Neo, Lux Capital and NFDG. New investors Catalio Capital Management, Menlo Ventures, 776, Fusion Fund and others also participated in the round. Medra says it unifies robotics, AI and data generation into a continuous system. The company's Physical AI runs lab experiments on its own from start to finish. The company says it uses the same tools scientists already use, and that researchers can tell the AI what to do in everyday language. The San Francisco-based company also offers a partner system, Scientific AI, which reads and makes sense of experiment results. The company says Scientific AI also helps scientists improve their methods. Medra and Genentech will focus on drug discovery that integrates AI, data and experiments while leveraging Medra's Physical AI, Scientific AI and robotics for lab experiments. Through the partnership, Medra will integrate with Genentech's laboratory information management system (LIMS) and machine learning (ML) infrastructure for continuous learning, enabling in-house predictions, running experiments and iteratively optimizing scientific experiments. "Pharma runs millions of experiments, but most of that data can't be reused or fed back into AI. We're closing that loop by tying predictions to outcomes in a continuous, self-improving cycle," Michelle Lee, CEO and founder of Medra, said in a statement. "To accelerate drug development, we need to link predictions directly to automated execution and feed the results back into the model. This continuous loop enables drug discovery companies to run far more experiments, iterate faster, and advance therapies with a higher probability of success." Lila Sciences is another company developing an AI-enabled scientific superintelligence platform, paired with autonomous labs, that runs the entire scientific method. The company's supercomputer evaluates how various aspects of science, biology, microbiology and more can interact. The technology generates hypotheses, designs experiments and learns from results. In October, Lila Sciences closed a $350 million Series A round, bringing its total capital raise to $550 million in less than a year. The Series A closed in two parts, with the company receiving $235 million in September, co-led by Braidwell and Collective Global. Earlier this year, the Massachusetts-based Lila Sciences raised $200 million in seed funding.

Medra AI has launched its Continuous Science Platform, combining robotics and AI to automate laboratory experimentation and accelerate discoveries through collaborations with leading biotech and pharmaceutical partners.