Curi Bio’s $10M Boost: A Bet on Human Models to Fix Drug Discovery

SEATTLE, WA – December 02, 2025 – In a move that signals a significant industry shift, Seattle-based Curi Bio has secured $10 million in Series B financing to scale its human-relevant preclinical platforms. The investment, led by the prominent South Korean contract research organization (CRO) DreamCIS, is more than just a capital injection; it’s a powerful validation of a technology poised to tackle drug development's most persistent and costly problem: the staggering 90% failure rate of new therapeutics in human clinical trials.

For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has relied on a well-worn path of 2D cell cultures and animal models to test the safety and efficacy of new drug candidates. Yet, this path is notoriously unreliable, creating a chasm between promising preclinical results and actual human outcomes. Curi Bio aims to build a bridge across this “valley of death” with an integrated platform that provides what R&D pipelines desperately need: predictive data from human biological systems, long before a candidate ever reaches a patient. This new funding, coupled with a strategic partnership, positions the company to move its innovative approach from the cutting edge to the industry standard.

The High Cost of Failed Predictions

The fundamental challenge in drug development is not a lack of innovation, but a lack of predictability. Animal models, despite their complexity, often fail to recapitulate human disease or predict toxic side effects, leading to catastrophic and expensive late-stage failures. This inefficiency has enormous financial implications, with the cost of bringing a single drug to market now estimated in the billions.

“The vast majority of new drugs fail in human clinical trials because preclinical animal and 2D cell models have failed to be good predictors of human outcomes,” stated Michael Cho, JD, Chief Strategy Officer at Curi Bio, in the company’s announcement. This sentiment is echoed across the industry and is now attracting regulatory attention. Agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are actively encouraging the adoption of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) to reduce and eventually replace animal testing, creating a powerful tailwind for companies like Curi Bio.

The industry is at a tipping point. “This investment reflects a clear industry shift: drug developers are demanding human-relevant functional data earlier, because traditional animal and 2D models aren’t predicting human outcomes,” added Elliot Fisher, Curi Bio's Co-founder and Chief Business Officer. The demand is for models that don't just approximate biology but replicate it with high fidelity.

An Engine for Human-Relevant Data

Curi Bio’s answer to this challenge is its integrated, three-pronged platform that combines human cells, advanced biosystems, and sophisticated data analysis to create what it calls “human-relevant functional data.”

First is the foundation: high-purity, next-generation human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). These cells can be coaxed into becoming specific cell types—like cardiac muscle, skeletal muscle, or neurons—providing the fundamental building blocks for disease models.

Second are the advanced systems designed to mature these cells into functional, 3D engineered tissues. This is where the company’s proprietary technology shines. Platforms like the Mantarray™ system allow for the parallel creation and analysis of 3D Engineered Muscle Tissues (EMTs), measuring key functional parameters like contractility. The Nautilus™ platform provides automated optical mapping of electrical and calcium signals in cells, condensing days of complex analysis into minutes. These systems don't just grow cells in a dish; they create micro-environments that mimic human physiology, enabling researchers to observe how tissues function and respond to new compounds in real time.

Finally, the platform integrates advanced data analysis, leveraging AI and machine learning to uncover deep phenotypic insights from the complex functional data generated. This allows for a much richer understanding of a drug's effect than simple toxicity readouts, providing a more predictive picture of its potential in humans.

“This investment enables us to aggressively scale our integrated platforms, providing our biopharma partners with predictive, functional data on human systems across a variety of devastating diseases,” said Nicholas A. Geisse, PhD, CEO of Curi Bio. He noted the data helps guide candidate selection and de-risks R&D pipelines, ultimately aiming to “accelerate the development of safer, more effective medicines for patients.”

A Strategic Alliance to Reshape the CRO Landscape

The decision by DreamCIS, a leading CRO, to lead the funding round is perhaps the most telling aspect of this news. CROs are on the front lines of clinical trials, managing the very process where drug candidates so often fail. By investing in a preclinical technology company, DreamCIS is making a strategic bet on improving the quality of drug candidates before they enter costly human studies. This represents a proactive move to de-risk its own operations and offer a more valuable, end-to-end service to its pharmaceutical clients.

“Curi Bio’s unique integration of cells, systems, and data is a paradigm shift for preclinical drug discovery,” commented Jeounghee Yoo, CEO of DreamCIS. “This technology provides the predictive power that pharma companies desperately need to improve R&D productivity. We believe Curi Bio is perfectly positioned to become the gold standard in this rapidly growing market.”

This partnership provides Curi Bio with more than just capital; it offers a direct channel into the global clinical development ecosystem. The collaboration is poised to accelerate the translation of Curi Bio’s platforms into global clinical success, leveraging DreamCIS’s extensive experience in clinical research and regulatory affairs, particularly within the burgeoning Asian market.

Scaling for Global Impact

With the $10 million in new capital, Curi Bio plans an aggressive expansion. The primary goal is to scale its existing integrated platforms and expand its commercial reach across the globe. A significant portion of the investment will also fuel the development of new platforms targeting a range of debilitating conditions, including cardiac diseases, metabolic disorders, skeletal muscle wasting, and complex neuromuscular diseases like ALS.

This expansion comes at a time of surging market demand for 3D cell culture and organoid technologies, a market projected to grow at a double-digit CAGR. While Curi Bio faces competition from other innovators in the organ-on-a-chip and 3D bioprinting space, its focus on an integrated platform for contractile and excitable tissues, backed by proprietary hardware and AI, carves out a distinct and valuable niche.

By generating clinically relevant data far earlier in the discovery process, this technology holds the promise of not only saving billions of dollars in failed R&D but also dramatically shortening the timeline for bringing life-changing therapies to patients who need them most.