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Why We Invested: Intrepid Labs

Redefining Drug Formulation with AI and Automation

Intrepid Labs is transforming drug formulation through Valiant™, its proprietary modular, AI- and robotics-powered laboratory platform that reduces formulation timelines from months to days. By exploring vast formulation design spaces in parallel, Intrepid enables developers to create optimized drug delivery formats that improve clinical performance, safety, and patient outcomes, removing a critical bottleneck in the drug formulation workflow.

Founded in 2023 and led by CEO and co-founder Dr. Christine Allen, Intrepid brings together deep expertise in formulation science, automation, and machine learning to address one of the most persistent and solvable challenges in drug development. Since its launch in 2023, the company has partnered with a range of drug developers, including top global pharmaceutical firms, contract research organizations, and innovative biotechs. These partners use the Valiant™ platform to rapidly identify optimized formulations and accelerate development timelines. Alongside these collaborations, Intrepid is building a pipeline of proprietary drug delivery technologies, developed in-house and available for licensing – extending the company’s impact beyond platform access into therapeutic innovation.

The Formulation Bottleneck: A Costly Blind Spot

Drug formulation is a make-or-break step in drug development, and yet it remains one of the most overlooked stages in the development process. Identifying an active ingredient for a new drug product is only the first step, it then has to be formulated into a delivery format such as a tablet, capsule or injectable. For this an optimal product profile must be determined to ensure maximum safety and efficacy. Traditional formulation relies on a slow, linear trial-and-error approach, making it nearly impossible to explore the full design space of excipients, formats, and delivery profiles. The result – promising molecules get delayed, or worse, fail. Not because of efficacy, but because they weren’t formulated optimally. As a recent C&EN article noted, the challenge isn’t just complexity, it’s scale. Without automation and AI, the formulation process simply can’t keep pace with today’s drug pipelines.

The urgency for better formulation strategies is reflected in a new wave of patient-centered drug products enabled by advances in drug delivery. These include single dose combination therapies, extended-release implants, inhaled biologics, and wearable subcutaneous systems. Each of these innovations depends on sophisticated formulation to ensure stability, performance, and real-world usability – precisely the kind of capability that Intrepid Labs is enabling. By integrating intelligent design at the earliest stages of development, Intrepid ensures that promising therapies can be delivered in formats that meet patients where they are.

Intrepid’s Platform: Smarter Formulation, Delivered Faster

That’s where Intrepid comes in. By combining AI, lab automation, and a proprietary formulation platform, Intrepid is unlocking radically faster, predictive, and scalable drug formulation. Their Valiant™ system helps R&D teams compress months of work into days, accelerating time to clinic and reducing costly formulation failures.

With its Valiant platform, Intrepid combines artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics in a modular, semi- and fully-autonomous lab system that can reduce formulation timelines from months to days. Valiant enables drug developers to explore vast formulation design spaces, identifying optimized delivery profiles that improve clinical performance, patient safety, and development success rates.

What sets Intrepid apart:

  • Parallelized design exploration: Rapidly identifies optimal delivery formats, saving months of development time.
  • Autonomous workflows: Robotics reduce manual bottlenecks and variability.
  • Data-rich decision-making: AI-driven insights optimize for bioavailability, stability and manufacturability.

Beyond enabling external R&D programs, Intrepid is developing its own suite of next-generation delivery technologies – targeting unmet needs in oral, injectable, and alternative dosage forms. These platform-enabled assets are available for strategic licensing and co-development, representing a growing IP base that complements its platform offering.

“Intrepid Labs is unlocking a new era in drug formulation, in which delivery format, dosing frequency, and patient experience can be intentionally designed from day one,” said Sebastien Latapie, Partner at AVANT BIO. “By enabling a more intelligent and data-driven approach, Intrepid has the potential to reshape how therapies are brought to market – faster, better, and more affordably.”

AVANT BIO’s Investment Fueling the Transformation of Drug Formulation

AVANT BIO led the $7 million USD seed round, which follows a $4 million USD round led by Radical Ventures, with participation from Propagator Ventures. The proceeds from these financings will expand Intrepid Labs’ team, accelerate the development of its proprietary delivery technologies, and scale commercial operations to keep pace with customer demand.

AVANT BIO invested in Intrepid Labs to support its vision of making smarter, more efficient formulation a cornerstone of therapeutic innovation. The investment aligns particularly well with the AVANT BIO mandate to empower companies that solve critical drug formulation bottlenecks. Intrepid has already established a commercial pipeline and can now leverage the AVANT team’s collective experience in scaling sales and its global list of strategic partners.

Looking Ahead: A New Standard for Therapeutic Innovation

At AVANT BIO, we believe that formulation should be a strategic asset – not a roadblock. Intrepid Labs represents the future we envision: one where formulation development is as intelligent and iterative as drug discovery itself.

With its unique blend of automation, AI, and scientific rigor, Intrepid is setting a new bar for how drugs are developed and delivered. We’re proud to support their mission – not just with capital, but as strategic partners who share a commitment to unlocking next-generation therapies.