What is techbio apart from an anagram of biotech? Today's biotech companies are increasingly leveraging software to accelerate their scientific pursuits. With the rise of inexpensive sequencing, high throughput experimentation, and machine learning, it is clear that software solutions are key parts of our industry’s future. Yet despite these advancements, current solutions are lagging behind, compelling many techbio companies — including two at which I've worked — to build significant internal software teams. Consistent with this was a recurring theme I heard in conversations with Bits in Bio members: without a solution that fits their needs, companies must recreate similar software platforms themselves. That's why I founded Sphinx Bio.

Our mission is straightforward: to empower scientists to make better decisions, faster.

Anatomy of a techbio data platform

We understand the urgency: drug discovery is hard and continues to get harder. What matters most is getting high quality molecules into clinical trials as quickly as possible. Techbio companies have historically had to build platforms that blend software and science in order to achieve that goal. These platforms aim to support:

• Rapid analytics turnaround to understand recent results.
• Contextual data analysis for molecules, taking into account previous experiments and similar molecules.
• Machine Learning (ML) models for molecular design and selection, integrated into scientists’ workflows.
• Tracking progress across multiple programs or partnerships.
• APIs for computational teams to access data and extend tools with custom functionality.

Existing software solutions weren’t built for these requirements and are falling painfully short. As a result, companies find themselves diverting scientific and software expertise into developing makeshift, in-house software platforms; an expensive and inefficient solution.

Why current tools fail

Unfortunately, the alternative is to force scientists to fend for themselves, leading to a proliferation of ad-hoc Jupyter notebooks and Excel sheets. While that may work for one-off analyses, it is not a sustainable solution in a world in which scientific discovery is driven by increasingly large and complex datasets.

On the other end of the spectrum are highly specialized but inflexible bioinformatics pipelines and custom tools. These tools are time consuming to create and only make sense for static experiments being run hundreds of times. While this might have worked well in the past, it’s not sufficient in today’s rapidly evolving environment.

What's missing is software tailored for the typical discovery case — projects that require a few dozen uses — where the needs are specific yet recurrent.

Our solution

Our platform strikes a deliberate balance between reusability and customization. Rather than forcing you to navigate endless forms like your LIMS, we'll accept your data as is — then help you structure it. But we don’t ignore structured data either: we integrate seamlessly with your existing LIMS, ensuring that relevant metadata is readily available during analysis. But we don’t stop at analysis. When you’re done analyzing your data and have selected molecules to follow up on, we’ll help you design your next experiment. Whether it’s pushing a plate design into your LIMS or walking you through an interactive ML workflow, we’ll turn it into the click of a button. Say goodbye to the plethora of untracked CSVs.

At Sphinx Bio, we believe that better software can enable scientific advancement. We’ve assembled a team with a rich history of building tools for scientists. We're fluent in both the language of software and the intricacies of scientific research, making us the partner you need to accelerate your journey from the lab to the clinic.

Are you ready to elevate your biotech research with software designed for the challenges you actually face? If you’ve ever wondered “where is the data for this experiment?” or “why does it take so long to analyze my results?” or “how can I bridge the gap between the dry and wet lab?” — then let’s talk.

Contact us today for a product demo, a consultation, or simply to learn more about best practices in the industry. Together we can make better decisions, faster.

- Nicholas

P.S. If you are excited by building better software for scientists: we’re hiring