AI-driven Indian biotech PopVax, backed by $20M from Vitalik's Balvi fund, enters human trials with fridge-stable broad-spectrum Covid vaccine
chaitjo · x · 2026-10-28
Mint's "Lab Rats" series profiles PopVax, a Hyderabad biotech founded in 2021 by Yale computer scientist Soham Sankaran. About 100 staff span computational design, ML, robotics, wet-lab testing, and clinical-dose manufacturing. Its first candidate — a fridge-stable, broad-spectrum Covid vaccine aimed at easing cold-chain constraints in developing countries — is now in human trials, and will be open-sourced after Phase 1 ("our gift to the world"). Funding includes $100K from the Gates Foundation and $20M from Vitalik Buterin's Balvi fund. PopVax has seven vaccines in development (including hepatitis C and strep A), runs its trials in Australia (30-day Phase 1 approval vs. months in India), and grew from 2 people in a shared CCMB lab to a 10,000 sq ft facility.
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