San Francisco-based Unlearn.ai, a fast-growing biotech-focused AI startup, is being sued by one of its investors, Japanese pharma Eisai Inc., after it accused Eisai of revealing its trade secrets at a conference.
The complaint, filed Monday in federal court in the Northern District of California, is seeking a declaratory judgment that Eisai did not misappropriate any trade secrets from Unlearn or breach confidentiality agreements between the two companies.
The dispute stems from an Eisai presentation last year to a consortium focused on treatments for Alzheimer's disease. Unlearn, which touts that its AI digital twin technology can make clinical trials more efficient, alleged that Eisai's presentation improperly disclosed Unlearn's proprietary "prognostic covariate adjustment" methodology that the startup considers a trade secret.
However, the Japanese pharmaceutical giant, which recently won FDA approval for an Alzheimer's drug, says in the suit that the scientist giving the presentation has "deep expertise" in statistical modeling and AI-based clinical trial analysis, and the methodology discussed at last year's meeting was developed independently by Eisai.
Unlearn and Eisai did not return a request for comment.
Eisai had invested in Unlearn in 2020 through its venture capital arm, Eisai Innovation, in a $15 million Series A round. The exact amount Eisai invested was undisclosed.
Following the investment, Eisai entered into a confidentiality and evaluation agreement with Unlearn to test the startup's technology, which created digital twins of clinical trial participants, against its own real patient data from previous trials.
But Eisai alleges it was not satisfied with the results of evaluating Unlearn's approach in 2021 and did not reach an agreement for a followup deal.
After the 2022 consortium presentation on Alzheimer's clinical trials, Unlearn representatives allegedly accused Eisai of misusing its intellectual property and violating state and federal trade secrets laws.
In its lawsuit, Eisai denies wrongdoing, stating its presentation did not disclose any Unlearn trade secrets, and accuses Unlearn of making "misguided" allegations and making an "unacceptable" settlement demand.
Unlearn was founded in 2017 and has raised $134.85 million to date, backed by investors like Epic Ventures and 8VC, according to Pitchbook. The company has been undergoing major expansion in San Francisco, following a $50 million raise this year, quadrupling its office space and expanding its headcount.
