Vijay Pande, who built Andreessen Horowitz’s life-sciences investment practice into one managing nearly $4 billion, has launched a smaller venture firm, VZVC, with investor Zach Werner. The firm plans to make only a handful of concentrated investments each year, operate without associates and use AI heavily, reflecting Pande’s view that focused backing is more effective than making dozens of bets.

Pande argues that AI could help turn biology from a largely discovery-led field into one that can be engineered, improving drug-target selection, development and eventually clinical trials. However, trials can still cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and only about 20% of drugs progress successfully from the first to the third trial; he says better AI models may eventually outperform animal testing, whose ability to predict human outcomes is limited.