Lunai Bioworks, an AI-driven drug discovery and biodefense company has reached a significant milestone under its NIH STTR-supported initiative by generating high-resolution multidimensional behavioral profiles of ethanol exposure and alcohol withdrawal. Using high-throughput vertebrate screening, the company identified reproducible neurobehavioral patterns that are only partially addressed by existing therapies. These findings reveal previously underexplored biological pathways with strong potential for translation into new treatments. Building on this achievement, Lunai has launched a commercial drug discovery program focused on Alcohol Use Disorder, a condition affecting roughly thirty million people in the United States, most of whom receive no effective pharmacologic intervention.
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The program aims to develop differentiated mechanism-based therapeutic candidates that can progress toward clinical application while remaining open to partnerships, licensing, and non-dilutive funding opportunities. With its scalable screening infrastructure now fully operational, Lunai expects to accelerate candidate nomination and subsequent development.
David Weinstein, Chief Executive Officer of Lunai Bioworks, highlighted that the results emphasize both the urgent unmet need in Alcohol Use Disorder and the commercial potential for biologically informed precision therapies. He explained that Lunai’s strategy is to create partner-ready programs leveraging its platform to address large, underserved neuropsychiatric markets.
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The initiative is supported by a Small Business Technology Transfer grant from the National Institutes of Health and is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Calum MacRae, Vice Chair for Scientific Innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Alcohol Use Disorder is one of the largest unmet needs in neuropsychiatry, costing the U.S. economy approximately two hundred fifty billion dollars annually, contributing to over two hundred related disease conditions, and ranking as the leading global risk factor for death among adults aged fifteen to forty-nine. Despite this burden, fewer than five percent of people with AUD receive treatment from a healthcare professional, reflecting both the limitations of current therapies and the biological complexity of the condition.
Dr. MacRae noted that Alcohol Use Disorder is not a single disease but a spectrum of biologically distinct states. He added that high-resolution behavioral phenotyping can reveal mechanistic signals that conventional methods often miss, creating a rational foundation for the development of precision therapies that target the underlying biology of AUD.
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