Fauna Bio

The company's core business is leveraging comparative genomics and artificial intelligence to discover new therapeutic targets for human diseases. It operates in the biopharmaceutical market, analyzing the biology of animals with extreme traits, such as hibernation, to uncover protective mechanisms that can be translated into human therapies. The business model centers on its proprietary AI-driven discovery platform, initially named Convergence™ and now evolved into Fauna Brain™. This platform integrates genomic data from hundreds of mammal species with biomedical knowledge graphs to identify and validate novel drug targets. Revenue is generated through strategic collaborations and partnerships with large pharmaceutical companies. A significant milestone is a multi-year agreement with Eli Lilly, potentially worth up to $494 million, to discover new treatments for obesity. The company has also engaged in a research collaboration with Novo Nordisk focused on obesity.

Fauna Bio’s main offering is its drug discovery engine, which rapidly identifies and prioritizes therapeutic candidates. The Fauna Brain™ platform functions as a multi-agent AI system that automates complex research tasks, including target scoring and evidence synthesis. It utilizes a vast biobank and genomic dataset from 452 species, including the 13-lined ground squirrel, to find genes and pathways associated with disease resistance. This approach allows the company to explore therapeutic areas such as heart failure, neuroprotection, metabolism, and retinal diseases. One lead candidate, Faun1083, derived from hibernation physiology, has shown promise in preclinical models for heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The platform's efficiency significantly reduces the time and cost of early-stage R&D, enabling the rapid evaluation of thousands of potential drug targets.