Roger Perlmutter, the head of research and development at Merck, is joining the board of Insitro, a firm focused on using artificial intelligence to discover drugs.
Insitro, backed with $243 million in venture capital from firms including Casdin Capital and ARCH Venture Partners, was founded by Daphne Koller, known for co-founding Coursera, the online learning firm, and working at Calico, a drug discovery arm of Alphabet. The company has a research partnership with Gilead Sciences.
For Perlmutter, the position offers an opportunity to share his deep background in drug development — and a chance to wax poetic about AI’s potential usefulness in discovering new medicines.
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