Multiply Labs raises $75M to scale robots that manufacture drugs

The San Francisco startup's autonomous robotic clusters automate biologics production; total funding now tops $100 million.

Multiply Labs has raised $75 million in Series B funding to expand its robotic systems for drug manufacturing, bringing its total funding above $100 million, according to an October 6 report by Business Insider relayed by The AI Insider. The round was led by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and NantWorks, with new investors including AstraZeneca, Lingotto, Teradyne and Strange Ventures, and returning backers Casdin Capital, Lux Capital, Fifty Years, Ora Global and Founders Fund.

The company builds autonomous robotic clusters designed to drop into existing pharmaceutical plants and automate manual, tightly timed production steps across cell and gene therapies, antibodies, viral vectors and mRNA therapies — without requiring a new facility or changes to already-validated procedures. The pitch: AI is designing therapies faster than the industry can physically make them. “Robotics is the only way to deliver these therapies to patients at scale,” co-founder and CEO Fred Parietti said in the announcement.

The efficiency figures are the company’s own: Multiply Labs claims its systems can cut cost per dose by 74% and deliver up to 100 times the throughput of manual manufacturing, operating inside enclosed, GMP-compliant environments. Soon-Shiong called it “the world of physical AI biological manufacturing,” in the announcement. Founded in 2016 as a Y Combinator startup, the company says the new capital will go toward manufacturing capacity, product development and growing its engineering, regulatory and commercial teams as it moves from clinical-stage deployments toward commercial production.