Lantern Pharma debuts Zeta.ai co‑scientist

Drug discovery is a long process of testing ideas against biology, and Lantern Pharma says it has now turned that process into a commercial software product called withZeta.ai. (businesswire.com) Lantern announced on April 14 that withZeta.ai was “commercially live” and actively onboarding subscribers for rare-cancer drug discovery, development, molecular design and clinical-trial planning. (businesswire.com) (lanternpharma.com) The basic pitch is that researchers can ask plain-language questions and the system routes work across specialized artificial intelligence agents, instead of forcing scientists to search papers, datasets and molecular tools one by one. Lantern said the platform combines literature, molecular and genomic data, analytics and clinical insight in one interface. (lanternpharma.com) (businesswire.com) Lantern said withZeta.ai draws on more than 25 million PubMed papers, more than 200 oncology-focused machine-learning models and data across 438 rare cancers. The company also said the system can support biomarker discovery, target selection, trial design and combination-therapy analysis. (businesswire.com 1) (businesswire.com 2) Rare cancers are the commercial target because each disease has fewer patients, less published research and fewer drug programs than common tumors. Lantern is trying to sell a tool that helps researchers connect scattered evidence faster and decide which experiments are worth running. (businesswire.com) The launch was staged as both a biotech and capital-markets event. Lantern scheduled a live demonstration at Nasdaq MarketSite on April 16 and a scientific debut at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting from April 17 through April 22. (businesswire.com) Lantern had previewed the product earlier in April in an investor briefing, with Chief Executive Panna Sharma leading a live demonstration on April 9. By March 30, the company had already told investors that 2026 would focus on converting beta engagements into commercial partnerships and expanding withZeta.ai across rare-cancer indications. (businesswire.com 1) (businesswire.com 2) That marks a shift for Lantern from using artificial intelligence mainly inside its own oncology pipeline to selling access to the software itself. The company’s investor materials describe RADR as the internal engine behind its drug programs, while withZeta.ai is being positioned as the outside-facing subscription product. (lanternpharma.com) (businesswire.com) Lantern kept promoting the rollout after AACR, announcing a first public demonstration for April 30 with two live sessions open to investors, researchers and the broader biomedical community. The message was that withZeta.ai was moving from a conference demo to a product the company wants outsiders to test and buy. (financialcontent.com) (finance.yahoo.com) For Lantern, the next proof point is not the launch event but whether subscribers turn into recurring revenue and drug-development deals. The company has said 2026 is the year it plans to make that conversion. (businesswire.com)