Persist AI GTM brain

category

market profile

• text: Drug formulation development involves iterative experiments to meet a quality target product profile, with slow manual workflows and costly downstream rework.
• text: Persist initially focused on long-acting injectables and now describes services across injectables, solid dispersions and other dosage forms.
• text: The product combines software deployed in a customer's cloud with access to robotic formulation experiments.

personas

• title: Head of pharmaceutical development
  pains:

  • Formulation iterations consume time before a candidate reaches the desired profile
  • Must allocate limited development resources across promising candidates and dosage forms
• title: Formulation scientist
  pains:

  • Manual assays and narrow experimental searches slow optimization
  • Knowledge scattered across historical experiments is difficult to reuse
• title: Biotech R&D leader
  pains:

  • Needs specialist formulation expertise without building all robotic infrastructure internally
  • Must protect proprietary experimental data while outsourcing studies

icp

• text: Pharmaceutical and biotech companies with an identified drug candidate requiring preclinical formulation development or optimization.
• text: Drug development teams pursuing complex formulations such as long-acting injectables, solid dispersions or lipid systems and facing slow experiment cycles.

message pillars

• text: Combine model-guided decisions with automated lab work.
• text: Protect the customer's data while providing formulation services.
• text: Apply software within the customer's cloud environment.

objections

• objection: Can model predictions be trusted for a drug development decision?
  response: Assess predictions against experimental evidence and agree on target product profile, assays and validation criteria before commissioning work.
• objection: Will our proprietary formulation data train the vendor's model?
  response: Persist says customers own their data and it does not use that data to improve its AI; confirm contractual terms.
• objection: Can Persist take a product through commercial manufacturing?
  response: Its service page describes a preclinical formulation CRO rather than a CDMO; discuss downstream partners and handoff scope.

competitors

• name: Lonza
  why: Drug product development and manufacturing provider listed among potential competitors.
• name: WuXi AppTec
  why: Pharmaceutical R&D services provider listed among potential competitors.
• name: Schrödinger
  why: Computational drug R&D software provider and an adjacent competitor.

keywords

• AI pharmaceutical formulation
• long acting injectable formulation development
• robotic formulation screening
• drug formulation CRO
• pharmaceutical cloud lab
• drug product optimization

voice

• Scientific and evidence-led
• Mission-driven
• Technically specific

signals

• text: A biotech has selected a candidate and is beginning formulation optimization or addressing solubility and stability challenges.
• text: A pharmaceutical team is expanding long-acting injectable development or seeking higher-throughput formulation screening.

stack

• AI
• robotic lab automation

pricing

motion

channels

• SEO
• press
• industry partnerships

confidence

Founders

• name: Karthik Raman
  title: Founder
  role: Founder
  bio: When mom got brain cancer, I used to take her for her "infusions". For 4 hours, we would sit there while drug was being infused into her veins and she had horrible nausea and hair loss. I built Persist to eradicate this horrible experience for future patients. We package drugs so that patients take 1 injection per month or year, without an infusion. This lowers the overall dose the patient receives (reducing side-effects), improves compliance, and quality of life.
• name: Christopher Shelner
  title: Founder
  role: Founder
  bio: Career program manager, first time founder. Focus has been in electronics, automation, and manufacturing. Super excited to be part of the YC batch!