The CTO of BenevolentAI is to leave the MedTech company.
Dr Daniel Neil (pictured) joined the company as principal machine learning researcher before being appointed to various AI-focused executive roles. He was named CTO in January 2022.
He has been based in New York as well as London in his time at the company. He has decided to leave to be closer to his family.
BenevolentAI, registered in Luxembourg and listed on the Euronext market in Amsterdam since April 2022, is headquartered in London.
He will be replaced by Dr James Malone from the beginning of April. Dr Malone, who will be based out of the UK, is currently vice president of engineering at Logically.ai.
He previously held senior leadership roles at AI life sciences companies BenchSci and SciBite.
“On behalf of BenevolentAI, I want to thank Daniel Neil for his many achievements and dedication to the company over many years and wish him well for the future,” said CEO Dr Joerg Moeller.
“James’s extensive experience is aligned to the problems of drug discovery and development and AI approaches. Specifically, his experience in building technology to support R&D within BioTech will help with the continuing development of the BenevolentAI Platform, which is critical for us to deliver cutting edge AI-driven drug discovery.”
Dr Malone added: “I’m excited to join the leadership team at BenevolentAI. I believe the combination of the Benevolent Platform, along with the company’s in-house scientific expertise, gives BenevolentAI strong foundations to continue to advance the use of AI in drug discovery and development to find life-changing treatments for patients.”
A former darling of the UK AI scene, BenevolentAI endured a turbulent 2023 which saw it announce plans to lay off 180 staff in May as its CFO resigned. The planned cost savings of £45 million were intended to extend its cash runway to at least July 2025.
Baroness Joanna Shields OBE – a former government minister who had built the company up from a startup over five years as CEO – then resigned in September, replaced by Dr Moeller in January.
However it recently signed a strategic collaboration with pharma giant Merck KGaA worth a potential $594m as well as appointing a new CFO and chief revenue officer last year.
For the 12 months ended 31st December 2023, revenue decreased to £7.3m (2022: £10.6m) – primarily reflecting decreased revenues from its collaboration with AstraZeneca, partly offset by the new Merck collaboration – while operating losses were £77.6m (2022: £197m).