For a drugmaker advancing medicines through clinical trials, time is the enemy: the longer the process takes, the more costs rise. Newly formed Dash Bio says it has a solution. Dash aims to help drug companies make faster decisions about which compounds in clinical studies warrant further advancement. The company plans to use robots, artificial intelligence and software to automate the testing of blood and other samples from clinical trials. By largely removing humans from the process, it hopes to speed analysis of study samples and help clients get drugs to market sooner. Chief Executive Dave Johnson co-founded Dash in April after previously heading data and AI for Covid-19 vaccine developer Moderna. Dash has raised $6.5 million in seed financing, from investors including Freestyle Capital, Swift Ventures and LifeX Ventures, and plans to serve customers through a robotics lab in Newton, Mass., a suburb of Boston. Robots will handle biological sample testing and data will be processed automatically through AI algorithms, Johnson said. Dash’s services won’t be cheaper than its competition, which comes from large contract-research organizations—companies that help drugmakers conduct clinical trials—and small consultancies that specialize in the bioanalysis of study samples, Johnson said. Rather, he said, Dash’s pitch will center on speed and quality. Through automation, the company aims to shorten processes that typically take several months to a few weeks. “There’s only two things that matter in this industry—the cost and time to bring drugs to market,” Johnson said. Dash will have to show its approach condenses timelines. And drugmakers already have relationships with established contract-research organizations. Persuading them to entrust bioanalysis work to a startup will be a hurdle for the company.

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