Big Picture Bio Emerges From Stealth With €2.55 Million to Develop AI-Designed Cancer Drug Combinations

London-based Big Picture Bio has emerged from stealth with €2.55 million (£2.2 million) in combined funding to develop AI-designed combination therapies for cancer and other complex diseases. The financing includes a €1.75 million (£1.5 million) pre-seed round co-led by Kadmos Capital and Exceptional Ventures, along with €815,000 (£700,000) in non-dilutive support from Innovate UK’s Investor Partnerships Programme. Gloucester Ventures and angel investor John White also participated in the equity round.

Founded by CEO Dr. Kerstin Papenfuss and CTO Dr. Mark Hammond, Big Picture Bio is building a generative “world model” designed to simulate how tumours, immune cells and surrounding tissue interact across different diseases and patient groups. The goal is to identify which drug combinations, and which treatment sequences, could be more effective at preventing cancer resistance.

The founders previously worked together at Deep Science Ventures for seven years. Papenfuss led DSV’s therapeutics work and founded 12 therapeutics and enabling-technology companies, with earlier experience at LifeArc and the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult. Hammond co-founded DSV and led its engineering work focused on agentic scientific discovery, while also having experience in licensing and investment at Imperial College.

Big Picture Bio says its approach has already been tested against real-world clinical outcomes. Its models correctly predicted the failure of Regeneron’s fianlimab trial and made 14 predictions ahead of the 2026 ASCO oncology conference, with 12 subsequently proving accurate, according to the company.

The challenge the startup is targeting is the enormous number of possible drug combinations. Big Picture Bio estimates that testing 100 drugs at 100 doses in pairwise combinations could require roughly 50 million laboratory experiments. Its AI models are designed to search this space computationally before selected candidates are taken into physical testing.

The new funding will help Big Picture Bio move its first AI-designed drug combinations from computational modelling into wet-lab validation. The company will initially focus on cancer and immune-mediated diseases, with a longer-term ambition to move beyond testing existing combinations and eventually design new treatments from the ground up. Its advisory team includes senior experts from AstraZeneca, Exscientia and PhoreMost.