Drug development still asks mice to predict people. Viscient’s nine-person team is building human liver disease in a dish - then using it to decide which medicines deserve a clinical trial.
Allysta Pharmaceuticals is a private, venture-backed, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class therapeutic peptides that target adiponectin signaling. Its lead compound, ALY688, is described as the first adiponectin receptor agonist to enter human testing, with anti-inflammatory, anti-fibrotic, cell-regenerative and metabolic properties. Allysta is advancing ALY688 as an ophthalmic solution for dry eye disease and as an extended/sustained-release formulation for systemic conditions such as NASH/MASH and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Mahmoud Ghulman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nash, a San Francisco-based AI logistics platform that serves as the delivery infrastructure layer for commerce - connecting businesses like Walmart, 7-Eleven, and thousands of restaurants to hundreds of delivery providers through a single API. A physics graduate from MIT, Ghulman spent nearly a decade building gig-economy and AI businesses before co-founding Nash in 2021 with high school friend Aziz Alghunaim. The company has raised $29.1M in total funding from Andreessen Horowitz and Y Combinator, and is pioneering agentic AI for last-mile delivery orchestration at enterprise scale.