# Vik Bajaj
**Vik Bajaj** (full name Vikram S. Bajaj) is an American physical chemist and biotechnology executive who co-founded Verily, Alphabet's life-sciences subsidiary, the cancer-detection company GRAIL, the AI drug-discovery company [Xaira Therapeutics](https://www.edgepedia.org/xaira-therapeutics), and, with [Jeff Bezos](https://www.edgepedia.org/jeff-bezos), the industrial-AI startup Project Prometheus, of which he is co-chief executive officer[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) • [2](https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/17/jeff-bezos-reportedly-returns-to-the-trenches-as-co-ceo-of-new-ai-startup-project-prometheus/). He is also a managing director of the venture firm Foresite Capital and co-founder and chief executive of its company-incubation arm, Foresite Labs[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Education | Combined B.A./M.S. in biochemistry, University of Pennsylvania; Ph.D. in physical chemistry, MIT; postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley in the Alex Pines lab[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) |
| Verily | Co-founded Google Life Sciences within Google X in March 2013; founding chief scientific officer after the December 2015 rebrand as Verily[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) • [3](https://fortune.com/2015/12/08/google-alphabet-verily/) |
| GRAIL | Co-founder and chief scientific officer, September 2016 to September 2017; scientific advisory board service through August 2021[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) |
| Foresite | Managing director of Foresite Capital from October 2017; co-founder and CEO of Foresite Labs from 2018[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) |
| Xaira Therapeutics | Co-founder, director, and interim president from January 2023; the company launched publicly in April 2024 with $1 billion in financing[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) • [4](https://www.axios.com/2024/04/24/stanford-ai-biotech-xaira) |
| Project Prometheus | Co-founder and co-CEO with Jeff Bezos from November 2025; the company had raised $6.2 billion and hired about 100 employees at launch[2](https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/17/jeff-bezos-reportedly-returns-to-the-trenches-as-co-ceo-of-new-ai-startup-project-prometheus/) |
| Academic post | Adjunct associate professor, Stanford University School of Medicine, since September 2014[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) |
## Education and early career
Bajaj trained as a physical chemist. He earned a combined B.A. and M.S. in biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the [Massachusetts Institute of Technology](https://www.edgepedia.org/massachusetts-institute-of-technology), then did postdoctoral research at the [University of California](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-california), Berkeley in the laboratory of Alex Pines[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/). From about 2004 to 2013 he was a research scientist and principal investigator at [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory](https://www.edgepedia.org/lawrence-berkeley-national-laboratory), working on diagnostic imaging and related physical-science methods[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/). His group's work earned two R&D 100 Awards, in 2011 and 2013, for commercialized technologies, along with the Anatole Abragam Prize in 2012 and the Department of Energy's LBL Innovation Grant in 2013[5](https://www.xaira.com/team/vik-bajaj).
## Google X and Verily
In March 2013 Bajaj co-founded Google Life Sciences as a project within Google X, Alphabet's moonshot research organization, working alongside Andy Conrad[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) • [6](https://medium.com/@vikbajaj/seeing-deeply-into-cancer-early-disease-interception-for-improved-outcomes-5d69664eecd7). He held a director role at Google X and served as chief scientific officer of the life-sciences project, and he contributed to other Google X programs, working with Google co-founder [Sergey Brin](https://www.edgepedia.org/sergey-brin) on efforts including the autonomous-delivery drone program that became Wing and the autonomous-driving program that became Waymo[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/).
In December 2015 Google Life Sciences was rebranded as Verily and spun out as a standalone Alphabet subsidiary, with Bajaj continuing as founding chief scientific officer alongside chief executive Andrew Conrad[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) • [3](https://fortune.com/2015/12/08/google-alphabet-verily/). Verily's stated aim was to understand disease at the individual level; in Bajaj's words in the company's launch video, "Not what makes someone sick, but what makes you sick"[3](https://fortune.com/2015/12/08/google-alphabet-verily/). Its projects included the Baseline Study, an effort to collect enough longitudinal data to define health baselines for the human body[3](https://fortune.com/2015/12/08/google-alphabet-verily/). Bajaj was a founding contributor to that study[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/).
## GRAIL and early cancer detection
In September 2016 Bajaj left Verily's day-to-day leadership to become co-founder and chief scientific officer of GRAIL, a startup focused on early cancer detection, while remaining chair of Verily's science board[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) • [6](https://medium.com/@vikbajaj/seeing-deeply-into-cancer-early-disease-interception-for-improved-outcomes-5d69664eecd7). The move had a personal dimension: his father, Parminder Bajaj, had died of cancer the previous year after the disease was found only after it had metastasized beyond effective treatment[6](https://medium.com/@vikbajaj/seeing-deeply-into-cancer-early-disease-interception-for-improved-outcomes-5d69664eecd7).
At GRAIL he guided the company's early development of methylation-pattern liquid-biopsy methodology, the scientific basis of a blood test intended to detect many cancer types from circulating cell-free DNA[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/). He served on GRAIL's scientific advisory board through August 2021[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/). GRAIL was later acquired by Illumina[5](https://www.xaira.com/team/vik-bajaj).
## Foresite Capital and Foresite Labs
In October 2017 Bajaj joined Foresite Capital, a venture capital and private equity firm investing in health care companies, as a managing director[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) • [7](https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/verily-co-founder-jumps-to-health-care-venture-firm-1513306543). Foresite's chief executive [Jim Tananbaum](https://www.edgepedia.org/jim-tananbaum) framed the hire as expanding the firm's scope to companies that personalize medicine and treatment based on individual genetic profiles[7](https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/verily-co-founder-jumps-to-health-care-venture-firm-1513306543).
In 2018 Bajaj co-founded Foresite Labs, the firm's entrepreneurial innovation hub, and became its chief executive[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/). Based in San Francisco and Boston, Foresite Labs launches life-sciences and health care companies that apply data-science tools to unmet medical needs[8](https://medium.com/foresite-labs-notebook/foresite-labs-supporting-the-next-generation-of-healthcare-entrepreneurs-93a1dba2222e). By late 2021 it had incubated five companies, including Esker Therapeutics, a developer of precision therapies for autoimmune diseases; Interline Therapeutics, a protein-therapeutics developer that completed a $92 million Series A; and Sestina Bio, a synthetic-biology company applying ultra-high-throughput single-cell technologies[9](https://www.genengnews.com/topics/drug-discovery/vikram-bajaj-phd-innovation-doesnt-come-from-boston-and-san-francisco-alone/). Bajaj has described the firm's thesis as the convergence of AI and biotechnology, arguing that applying AI to biology requires generating new datasets, not only new models[10](https://www.wilmingtontrust.com/library/article/building-the-future-of-biotech-one-algorithm-at-a-time).
He has also held board roles outside his own companies, as a director of Genomics England from 2021 and of [Quantum-Si](https://www.edgepedia.org/quantum-si) from June 2022[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/).
## Xaira Therapeutics
In January 2023 Bajaj co-founded Xaira Therapeutics, an AI-driven drug-discovery company, alongside [Marc Tessier-Lavigne](https://www.edgepedia.org/marc-tessier-lavigne) and Robert Nelsen[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/). The company emerged from stealth in April 2024 with more than $1 billion in financing co-led by [ARCH Venture Partners](https://www.edgepedia.org/arch-venture-partners) and Foresite Capital, making it one of the largest initial fundings in biotechnology[4](https://www.axios.com/2024/04/24/stanford-ai-biotech-xaira). Bajaj serves as a director and, per his own account, interim president[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/). Xaira's stated goal is to use AI to remove bottlenecks across the drug-development continuum, from target discovery through clinical development[11](https://www.xaira.com/our-team).
## Project Prometheus
In November 2025 Bajaj co-founded Project Prometheus with Jeff Bezos and became its co-chief executive officer[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/). The New York Times reported that the company had raised $6.2 billion, in part from Bezos, and had hired nearly 100 employees including researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta[2](https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/17/jeff-bezos-reportedly-returns-to-the-trenches-as-co-ceo-of-new-ai-startup-project-prometheus/). The startup develops AI that learns from real-world physical processes rather than only digital information, aimed at engineering and manufacturing tasks in sectors such as aerospace, advanced manufacturing, and automobiles[12](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/startups/who-is-vik-bajaj-co-ceo-of-jeff-bezos-ai-startup-project-prometheus/articleshow/125409707.cms?from=mdr). Bezos's co-CEO role marked his first formal operational position since stepping down as Amazon's chief executive in 2021[2](https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/17/jeff-bezos-reportedly-returns-to-the-trenches-as-co-ceo-of-new-ai-startup-project-prometheus/).
The company later dropped the "Project" qualifier and grew quickly. In June 2026 it announced $12 billion in Series B funding at a $41 billion valuation[13](https://www.axios.com/2026/06/11/prometheus-bezos-industrial-ai). Bezos and Bajaj have described the goal as building an "artificial general engineer," a set of tools that compresses engineering design cycles; Bezos gave the example of a jet-engine modification that would normally take a ten-year program[14](https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-pro-rata-c007d2f6-d2d2-41cc-96e2-ea8c5b760f11). By that point the company reported around 150 employees and no corporate ties to Amazon or [Blue Origin](https://www.edgepedia.org/blue-origin)[14](https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-pro-rata-c007d2f6-d2d2-41cc-96e2-ea8c5b760f11).
## Academic work
Alongside his industry roles, Bajaj has held an adjunct associate-professor appointment at the Stanford University School of Medicine since September 2014, affiliated with the molecular imaging program in radiology[1](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/) • [15](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/vikram-bajaj). His academic research interests lie at the interface of the physical sciences, engineering, and the life sciences[5](https://www.xaira.com/team/vik-bajaj).
## References
1. [Vik Bajaj, nextomoro](https://nextomoro.com/vik-bajaj/)
2. [Jeff Bezos reportedly returns to the trenches as co-CEO of new AI startup, Project Prometheus, TechCrunch (November 17, 2025)](https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/17/jeff-bezos-reportedly-returns-to-the-trenches-as-co-ceo-of-new-ai-startup-project-prometheus/)
3. [This Former Google Moonshot Is Going All in With a New Name, Fortune (December 8, 2015)](https://fortune.com/2015/12/08/google-alphabet-verily/)
4. [Ex-Stanford president's AI biotech startup snares $1 billion, Axios (April 24, 2024)](https://www.axios.com/2024/04/24/stanford-ai-biotech-xaira)
5. [Vik Bajaj Bio, Xaira Therapeutics](https://www.xaira.com/team/vik-bajaj)
6. [Seeing deeply into cancer: early disease interception for improved outcomes, Dr. Vikram (Vik) Bajaj, Medium (September 29, 2016)](https://medium.com/@vikbajaj/seeing-deeply-into-cancer-early-disease-interception-for-improved-outcomes-5d69664eecd7)
7. [Verily co-founder jumps to health care venture firm, Axios (October 30, 2017)](https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/verily-co-founder-jumps-to-health-care-venture-firm-1513306543)
8. [Foresite Labs: Supporting the Next Generation of Healthcare Entrepreneurs, Dr. Vikram (Vik) Bajaj, Medium (October 31, 2019)](https://medium.com/foresite-labs-notebook/foresite-labs-supporting-the-next-generation-of-healthcare-entrepreneurs-93a1dba2222e)
9. [Vikram Bajaj, PhD: "Innovation Doesn't Come from Boston and San Francisco Alone," GEN Edge (December 23, 2021)](https://www.genengnews.com/topics/drug-discovery/vikram-bajaj-phd-innovation-doesnt-come-from-boston-and-san-francisco-alone/)
10. [Building the Future of Biotech One Algorithm at a Time, Wilmington Trust (June 11, 2025)](https://www.wilmingtontrust.com/library/article/building-the-future-of-biotech-one-algorithm-at-a-time)
11. [Our Team, Xaira Therapeutics](https://www.xaira.com/our-team)
12. [Who is Vik Bajaj, co-CEO of Jeff Bezos' AI startup Project Prometheus?, The Economic Times](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/startups/who-is-vik-bajaj-co-ceo-of-jeff-bezos-ai-startup-project-prometheus/articleshow/125409707.cms?from=mdr)
13. [Prometheus, Jeff Bezos' AI startup, is now worth $41 billion, Axios (June 11, 2026)](https://www.axios.com/2026/06/11/prometheus-bezos-industrial-ai)
14. [Axios Pro Rata: Bezos billions](https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-pro-rata-c007d2f6-d2d2-41cc-96e2-ea8c5b760f11)
15. [Vikram S Bajaj, Stanford Medicine profile](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/vikram-bajaj)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Economics and business › Founders, operators, and investors › Life-science and healthcare founders and companies › Biotechnology and therapeutics*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 21, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026 · Last review: Oct 21, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license