# Benjamine Liu

> Benjamine Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Formation Bio, an AI-native pharmaceutical company in New York that licenses and develops its own drug pipeline. A Rhodes Scholar with a DPhil from Oxford, he started the company (originally TrialSpark) in 2016 after concluding during his graduate work that clinical trials, not discovery, were the real bottleneck slowing new treatments from reaching patients. Formation Bio has raised over $610 million, including a $372 million Series D led by a16z with backing from Sanofi.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Formation Bio
- **Organizations:** Formation Bio, TrialSpark, Harvard Business School MS/MBA Program in Biotechnology
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BS in Biology (awarded the college's highest graduation honor), Yale University, MPhil with distinction in Computational Biology (Paul Mellon Fellow), University of Cambridge, DPhil (Rhodes Scholar), research under Sir Simon Lovestone, University of Oxford
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Formation Bio, an AI-native pharmaceutical company valued above $1 billion, Raised over $610 million across funding rounds, including a $372M Series D, Rhodes Scholar (Oxford DPhil)

## Career timeline

- **2016** — Co-founded TrialSpark with Linhao Zhang to make clinical trials radically more efficient
- **2016-2020** — Built clinical trial technology: digital patient recruitment and site management software
- **2020-2022** — Evolved TrialSpark into a CRO running end-to-end trials for sponsors
- **2022-2023** — Began acquiring and in-licensing its own drug candidates
- **2023-12-05** — Rebranded TrialSpark as Formation Bio
- **2024-06** — Closed $372M Series D led by a16z with Sanofi; announced OpenAI + Sanofi AI collaboration

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Formation Bio, an AI-native pharmaceutical company valued above $1 billion
- Raised over $610 million across funding rounds, including a $372M Series D
- Rhodes Scholar (Oxford DPhil)
- Paul Mellon Fellow at Cambridge
- Received Yale College's highest graduation honor
- Brokered a first-of-its-kind AI collaboration with OpenAI and Sanofi for drug development
- Advises Harvard Business School's MS/MBA Program in Biotechnology

## Latest updates

- **2024-06** — Formation Bio closed a $372M Series D led by a16z with participation from Sanofi, Sequoia, Thrive, Emerson Collective and others; announced an AI collaboration with OpenAI and Sanofi.
- **2023-12** — TrialSpark rebranded as Formation Bio.

## Links

- Website: https://formation.bio
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamine-liu-54306518
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/benjamineyliu

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/benjamine-liu
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-04