OpenAI-Backed Red Queen Bio Raises $36M to Design Antiviral Antibodies

Biosecurity startup Red Queen Bio has raised $36 million in total funding to develop an artificial intelligence platform for designing antibody therapies against emerging viruses, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal covered by The Next Web .

The company is focusing its initial work on antibody treatments for avian influenza and other influenza strains, with plans to begin its first clinical trials in 2027. Red Queen Bio eventually intends to expand its pipeline to target coronaviruses, Ebola-like viruses, and relatives of smallpox, including potential pathogens that future AI systems could help engineer.

Red Queen Bio uses computational models to design antibodies engineered to bind tightly to viral targets. The startup grows cells in the laboratory to produce and test the designs, then feeds the experimental data back into its models to iterate on candidate potency. Chief executive Nikolai Eroshenko told the Journal that higher binding affinity lowers the required dosage volume, making broad manufacturing and deployment feasible.

Eroshenko and executive director Hannu Rajaniemi spun the startup out of biotechnology company HelixNano in 2025. OpenAI led Red Queen Bio's $15 million seed round announced last November, alongside investments from Cerberus Ventures, Fifty Years, and Halcyon Futures.

The company states on its website that its goal is to scale biological defenses faster than frontier AI capabilities advance. Red Queen Bio also notes that it does not conduct gain-of-function research and does not generate or isolate dangerous pathogens.

The funding comes amid mounting concern across the technology sector over biological risks tied to advanced AI. Google DeepMind established a dedicated AI biosecurity programme in July, while a Cisco evaluation found that no current major AI model was entirely resistant to bioweapon-related queries. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei also addressed the United Nations Security Council last week, calling for international backing of a ban on AI-assisted bioweapons.