Baio Labs: The Venture Leader Biotech Streamlining early-stage drug discovery processes

Meet Arne Schneuing, co-founder of Baio Labs. The biotech company employs generative AI to rapidly design target-specific small molecule drugs. Arne and the other nine Swiss National Biotech Team members will fly to Boston in June.

Name: Arne Schneuing
Location: Lausanne, Switzerland
Nationality: German
Graduated from: RWTH Aachen (BSc & MSc), KTH Stockholm (MSc), EPFL (PhD)
Prior role: PhD student
Founding team members: 3
Number of employees: 3 cofounders
Money raised: CHF 455k (Innosuisse WIP, EPFL AI grant, Venture Kick, Founderful Campus) 


What does your product or solution do, and what makes it unique?
At Baio Labs, we develop AI-driven tools for drug discovery that replace traditional screening with design, making the process more scalable and cost-effective. Our platform generates multiple potent candidates with diverse chemistries, helping customers diversify early and reduce downstream risk.

What trend or shift in your industry is currently creating the biggest opportunity for you?
Cheminformatics tools have been part of drug discovery for many years, but their impact on development pipelines has been limited. This is now changing, with breakthroughs such as AlphaFold marking the beginning of a broader paradigm shift.  As deep learning methods continue to improve at an extraordinary pace, we believe that an increasing share of pharmaceutical R&D will move from the physical to the digital world over the coming years.

How did the idea for your startup originate?
When we entered the field, we were struck by the inefficiency of drug development, which still takes over a decade. Motivated to improve this, we developed computational methods during our PhDs to tackle key challenges in molecular design. Strong interest from pharmaceutical companies has since validated the commercial potential of our work.

Which market are you addressing, and what potential do you see for your startup in that market?
We primarily target the preclinical small-molecule discovery market. We want to help large pharmaceutical companies, CROs, biotech startups, and any organization working to develop molecules that improve patients’ lives.  Thanks to our scalable, agent-based workflows, we believe we can serve a significant portion of this market.

What impact do you want your technology to have five years from now?
Inspired by AI programming assistants, we aim to maximize scientists’ productivity by allowing them to focus on high-level project design and decision-making, rather than low-level tasks such as running tools, writing analysis scripts, or coordinating experiments. This shift will enable faster iteration cycles and open the door to tackling more complex and previously undruggable diseases.

What major challenges have you faced so far?
Parts of the industry remain cautious about computational design tools. This skepticism is understandable, given past waves of overpromising in virtual drug discovery, which has been repeatedly touted as a drop-in replacement for experimental approaches but did not fully deliver in practice. We take these concerns seriously and focus on generating clear, reproducible results that demonstrate the value of our technology.

What motivates you on tough days?
Science is exciting, and the prospect of contributing meaningfully to human health and well-being is incredibly motivating.

Why did you decide to join the Venture Leaders Roadshow, and what are you most excited about?
I am excited to join the Venture Leaders Roadshow to strengthen our access to the world’s largest pharmaceutical market. The program offers a valuable opportunity to expand our network, increase visibility, and connect with key industry stakeholders.  In addition, external investment will be critical to realizing our vision, and introductions to US-based investors will significantly support our future fundraising efforts.