ITHome ITHome reported on October 21 that OpenAI announced on Tuesday local time the acquisition of Orchestra Bio, a four-year-old artificial intelligence biotech software startup, with the news published on the company's official website. The specific terms of the deal were not disclosed, but reports say that as of 2025, the startup had raised about $20 million (ITHome note: approximately 134 million RMB at current exchange rates) from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Atria, and 8VC.
Orchestra Bio develops AI agents that help biotech companies manage various miscellaneous tasks in drug development operations, covering funding tracking as well as solving scheduling issues for clinical trials.
OpenAI said it will absorb Orchestra Bio's team and technology into the development of the Rosalind project. Rosalind is the company's artificial intelligence model for life sciences research, and its companion tool Rosalind Workbench serves as an operational framework to help researchers design experiments and analyze experimental results. OpenAI said Rosalind has already won several well-known enterprise customers, including Moderna and Novo Nordisk.
This acquisition is a typical case showing that the leading AI labs — namely OpenAI and Anthropic — are continuously developing various kinds of software for large industries such as pharmaceuticals. The startup world has long harbored a concern: these big labs could launch new features at any time and transform into competitors. This time, however, Orchestra Bio was acquired and integrated rather than crushed out of existence.