Metanova Labs launches decentralized virtual screening on Bittensor

Metanova Labs says it is advancing drug discovery with decentralized AI on Bittensor. The project uses Bittensor’s crypto incentive model, where subnet owners/operators, miners, and validators coordinate to reward useful AI and compute contributions. A proof of concept for decentralized virtual screening was launched on March 1. The system aims to reduce the high cost and long timelines often described as a “crisis” in traditional drug discovery (commonly cited as ~$2.6 billion and ~10 years per drug). Metanova also claims its approach can scale chemistry search by expanding a starting set of about 1 billion molecules to roughly 65 billion combinatorial possibilities. Mechanically, Metanova’s design includes dual incentives. Miners can submit candidate molecules or compete using chemical search algorithms. Submissions are then evaluated through a “heat picking” step for potential toxicity and efficacy, helping prioritize molecules for later stages. The company frames the broader workflow as “derisking” assets while generating intellectual property across multiple stages, with ongoing refinement and testing to support safety and efficacy. Personalized medicine is highlighted as a need because individual patients can respond differently. Metanova’s CEO, Micaela Bazo, is cited as leading the effort. Metanova claims its platform has screened 4.8 million molecules across 7,000 protein targets and aims to cut drug discovery costs by half by replacing Big Pharma’s trial-and-error with distributed AI optimization on Bittensor.