Alentis Therapeutics is a Swiss clinical-stage biotech built around a single, unusual biological target: Claudin-1 (CLDN1), a tight-junction protein that becomes exposed in both fibrotic tissue and solid tumors. Founded in 2019 on the discovery of physician-scientist Professor Thomas Baumert, the company develops first-in-class monoclonal antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates that bind exposed CLDN1 to reverse organ fibrosis and treat CLDN1-positive cancers. Headquartered in Allschwil near Basel with R&D roots in Strasbourg, Alentis has raised roughly $365 million across rounds, including a $181.4 million Series D in November 2024, and is running clinical trials for its lead antibody lixudebart (ALE.F02) and two ADCs, ALE.P02 and ALE.P03.
Hexagon Bio is a Menlo Park biotech that mines the genomes of fungi and other microbes to discover new medicines. Its platform pairs machine learning, genomics, and synthetic biology to read DNA sequences, predict the small molecules they encode, and connect those molecules to the human proteins they act on - skipping the random trial-and-error that has long defined natural-product drug discovery. The company is focused on novel cytotoxic payloads for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) in oncology, and in late 2025 extended its approach to agriculture through a joint venture with Corteva.
Dave Licata is a Stanford-trained mechanical engineer turned biotech operator who co-founded TORL BioTherapeutics with legendary UCLA oncologist Dennis Slamon. As President and CFO (and founding CEO), he built TORL into a clinical-stage oncology company developing antibody-drug conjugates against targets like Claudin 6 and Claudin 18.2, raising more than $450 million while keeping a reputation for capital efficiency. He is also Executive Chairman of 1200 Pharma and previously founded Holoclara and served as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Caltech.
TORL BioTherapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in Culver City, California developing antibody-based cancer therapies, including antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and monoclonal antibodies. Built on discoveries from the UCLA laboratory of Dennis Slamon - the scientist behind Herceptin and Ibrance - TORL is advancing a pipeline against novel cancer targets such as Claudin 6, Claudin 18.2, CDH17, and DLK1. Its lead program, TORL-1-23 (ixotatug vedotin), a CLDN6-targeted ADC, is in pivotal trials for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. The company has raised over $450 million across multiple rounds, including a $96 million Series C in October 2025.
Myricx Bio is a London-based oncology biotech developing a completely new class of payloads for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), built on inhibitors of N-myristoyltransferase (NMT). Spun out of Imperial College London and the Francis Crick Institute, the company aims to give ADCs a fresh way to kill cancer cells that resist today's standard payloads. In July 2024 it closed a £90m ($114m) Series A, one of Europe's largest biotech rounds that year, to push its NMTi-ADC pipeline toward clinical trials.
Mohit Rawat is the Boston-based CEO of Myricx Bio, a UK-US biotech building a first-in-class antibody-drug conjugate platform based on NMT inhibition to treat cancer. He arrived in September 2025 fresh off Fusion Pharmaceuticals' $2.4 billion sale to AstraZeneca, where he was President and Chief Business Officer. With a Harvard MBA, an MIT chemical engineering master's, and stints at Novartis, AbbVie and McKinsey, he is steering Myricx toward its first human clinical trials in 2026.
Omni Design Technologies builds high-performance, ultra-low-power semiconductor IP - the data converters and mixed-signal blocks that move information between the analog and digital worlds. Its Swift family of ADCs, DACs and analog front-ends sits inside SoCs for AI infrastructure, 5G/6G, Wi-Fi 7, automotive lidar/radar, satellite links, and quantum control, fabricated on processes from 28nm down to advanced FinFET nodes.
Sean McCarthy is the chairman, president and CEO of CytomX Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharma in South San Francisco building 'Probody' conditionally activated antibodies that switch on inside the tumor and stay quiet everywhere else. An Oxford-trained cancer biologist turned operator, he has run CytomX since 2011, taking it from a venture-backed startup to a Nasdaq-listed company with partnerships across Bristol Myers Squibb, AbbVie, Amgen, Astellas, Moderna and Regeneron.
Kush Gulati is the Co-founder, President, and CEO of Omni Design Technologies, a Milpitas-based semiconductor IP company he founded in 2015. A serial entrepreneur on his fifth venture, he holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT and has spent over two decades pioneering ultra-low power analog circuit design. His proprietary SWIFT technology powers data conversion IP used in 5G, autonomous vehicles, AI infrastructure, satellite communications, and LiDAR applications by tier-one customers worldwide. Omni Design raised a $35M+ Series A in September 2025.
Bryan Faust, PhD is an Investment Partner on the Bio + Health team at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where he backs seed and Series A companies at the intersection of biology and technology. A trained biophysicist with a PhD from UCSF, he published research in Nature, Science, and Cell before pivoting to venture—studying antibody-protein interactions, GPCR signaling, and COVID-19 nanobodies along the way. At a16z he has co-led investments in Stipple Bio, Tessera Labs, Gate Bioscience, and Formation Bio, and writes widely on AI in life sciences, biotech financing, and the coming era of programmable medicine. When he's not reading pitch decks, he's surfing, roasting coffee, or hunting down the perfect tacos al pastor.