VeriSIM Life

VeriSIM Life is a San Francisco-based AI drug discovery and development company founded in 2017 by Dr. Jo Varshney. The company applies AI-driven, multi-disciplinary quantitative methods and computational biosimulation to improve the translation of drug candidates from preclinical research to clinical trials. VeriSIM Life serves pharmaceutical companies, biotechs, and academic and research institutions, and also engages in risk-sharing collaborations to co-develop promising drug candidates.

The company's core focus is reducing inaccuracy and waste in drug development by predicting patient outcomes before costly and time-consuming experimental work is undertaken. Rather than relying on trial-and-error experimentation, VeriSIM Life uses machine learning and in silico simulation to help researchers identify which compounds to advance and which to deprioritize, with the goal of improving on the approximately 8% success rate currently seen in drugs reaching market.

BIOiSIM Platform

• BIOiSIM is described as a first-in-class decision engine for AI drug discovery and R&D de-risking.
• The platform operates across an inferential search space of 1 billion drug-like compounds.
• It uses deep learning algorithms that spawn 10 billion network effects.
• Computational capacity supports up to 800 billion total potential simulation scenarios.
• The platform has been validated through 1.5 million real-world validation simulations.
• AI-powered predictions based on structure-only inputs achieve 83% average accuracy and are reported to be 82% more accurate than mechanistic non-informed tools.
• BIOiSIM supports a range of use cases including drug repurposing, formulation analysis, drug-drug interactions, safety and toxicity profiling, efficacy predictions, AI drug discovery, and patient stratification.

AtlasGEN Novel Drug Designer

• AtlasGEN is a novel drug designer module that identifies new molecules based on favorable chemical properties while simultaneously evaluating them for clinical safety and effectiveness.
• It uses VeriSIM Life's proprietary Translational Index technology to rank and pre-validate compound hits for translatability, compressing the hit-to-lead refinement and optimization process.
• The AtlasGEN search space is supported by more than 1 trillion compounds, using generative AI and deep learning techniques.
• The platform predicts protein-ligand binding affinity by combining geometric conformer analysis with machine learning, reported to be 72% more efficient than molecular docking-based approaches.
• Pre-validating hits for translatability reduces the number of compounds requiring subsequent experimental evaluation, lowering time and cost compared to other computational hit discovery approaches.

Pipeline and Subsidiary

• VeriSIM Life maintains a pipeline of BIOiSIM-accelerated drug assets.
• PulmoSIM Therapeutics is a wholly-owned brand of VeriSIM Life that identifies licensable candidates for preclinical translation and out-licensing to commercialization partners.
• The company engages in risk-sharing collaborations with partners in addition to providing AI-driven drug development services.

Team and Leadership

• The company was founded by Dr. Jo Varshney, who has a background spanning veterinary and human health development. Dr. Varshney was named to Inc.'s Female Founders 500 list.
• The leadership team includes a Chief Medical Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Head of Biosimulations, Senior ML Engineers, Computational Scientists, Bioinformatics Scientists, and a Senior Computational Chemist, among others.
• Scientific co-founder Dr. Vivek Gupta, Ph.D., contributes to the company's scientific direction.
• The strategic advisory board includes former senior figures from Sanofi, AstraZeneca, QuintilesIMS, the Bill & Melinda Gates Research Institute, and the FDA Advisory Committee, as well as academic experts in drug delivery and pulmonary medicine.

Recognition and Notable Details

• VeriSIM Life won the AI in Action Award at the 2025 Reuters Global Pharma Awards, an international program recognizing advances in the life sciences industry.
• The company was named a finalist in the Innovation Award category at the 2025 Scrip Awards.
• The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, and was founded in 2017.
• VeriSIM Life places an explicit emphasis on diversity, inclusion, and belonging as a foundational organizational principle, with a stated commitment to cognitive diversity and open communication across the team.

VeriSIM Life's platform ecosystem addresses multiple stages of the drug development process, from early compound discovery through translational prediction and regulatory preparation, with the stated aim of helping more treatments reach patients more efficiently.