The dealmaker inside an AI-native drug company
At Formation Bio, the pitch is that software can compress the decade-long, billion-dollar slog of bringing a drug to market. Someone still has to decide which drugs are worth the bet. That someone is David Steinberg.
Appointed Chief Business Officer in 2024, Steinberg runs in- and out-licensing and pipeline strategy for the New York company. Formation Bio acquires and licenses promising drug assets, pushes them through critical milestones like Phase II, and then hands them off for further development. His mandate is the front of that funnel: source the overlooked programs, structure the deals, build the partnerships.
In June 2025 he launched the company's first class of Entrepreneurs in Residence - four seasoned dealmakers covering everything from rare disease to immunology to the Asia-Pacific market. The idea is simple and a little contrarian: there is more good science than there is money to develop it, so go hunting where capital is scarce and assets are stranded.
It is a strange seat for a man who spent years on the other side of the table, writing the checks. But for Steinberg, building is the default setting. Funding founders was the detour.