drug-repurposing
(5)
Auransa
Auransa is a clinical-stage, AI-native biopharmaceutical company in Palo Alto, California, that uses a proprietary machine-learning platform - the SMarTR Engine - to mine large, heterogeneous human disease datasets and discover novel cancer therapies without starting from a predefined drug target. Founded in 2014 by Pek Lum and Viwat Visuthikraisee, the company pairs each predicted compound with the patient subtypes most likely to respond, aiming to improve the odds of clinical success. Its lead program, AU-409, an RNA transcription modulator for advanced liver cancer, is in Phase 1 trials, with additional programs including heart-safe chemotherapy.
Melior Discovery
Melior Discovery is an Exton, Pennsylvania preclinical contract research organization that specializes in in vivo pharmacology and drug repositioning. Its proprietary theraTRACE platform runs a candidate compound through a large, multiplexed panel of validated animal disease models simultaneously, systematically surfacing new therapeutic uses for existing or shelved drugs. Founded in 2005 by Andrew Reaume and Michael Saporito, the company both partners with major pharmaceutical firms and builds its own drug pipeline through spinouts, and was named CRO of the Year by Life Sciences Review in 2024.
Unravel Biosciences
Unravel Biosciences is a clinical-stage therapeutics company spun out of Harvard's Wyss Institute that starts with a patient's RNA rather than a drug target. Its BioNAV probabilistic network model of human health screens 40,000-plus compounds in silico - reporting roughly 200x the hit rate of conventional screens - to find existing molecules that can push a disease back toward health. The company validates predictions in engineered whole-organism models (including CRISPR-edited tadpoles) and then in patients, aiming to bring effective, lower-cost therapies to rare and overlooked diseases. Its lead asset, RVL-001 (a proprietary formulation of vorinostat), holds FDA Orphan Drug Designation for Rett syndrome and has entered clinical studies.
Andrew Reaume
Andrew Reaume is the co-founder, President and CEO of Melior Discovery, an Exton, Pennsylvania preclinical contract research organization built around theraTRACE, a multiplexed in vivo phenotypic screening platform that runs a single drug candidate through a battery of animal disease models at once to uncover unexpected therapeutic uses. A geneticist by training with a Wharton MBA, he conceived the idea at Pfizer, left in 2005 to build it, and has since raised over $15 million in capital, closed more than $40 million in partnering deals, and pushed a repurposed compound, MLR-1023, into Phase 2 diabetes trials.
Richard Novak
Richard Novak is a bioengineer and entrepreneur who co-founded and leads Unravel Biosciences, a rare disease therapeutics company built on its BioNAV platform that uses RNA network analysis to ask whether a drug will help real patients before working backward to find its target. A former lead engineer at Harvard's Wyss Institute with 15+ years in drug discovery systems, he also founded the swab company Rhinostics during the COVID-19 pandemic and the science-education nonprofit Future Scientist. Novak holds a PhD in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley and a BS in Biology from Emory, and is a 2024 Termeer Fellow.