Aulos Bioscience is a Larkspur, California, clinical-stage immuno-oncology company using artificial intelligence to design antibody therapeutics that unlock the anti-cancer power of interleukin-2 (IL-2). Its lead candidate, imneskibart (AU-007) - described as the first AI-designed human monoclonal antibody to enter human clinical trials - redirects IL-2 away from immune-suppressing regulatory T cells and toward immune-activating effector T cells and NK cells, aiming to treat solid tumors such as melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer while avoiding the toxicity that has limited earlier IL-2 therapies.
EpiBiologics is a San Mateo biotech building bispecific antibodies that grab disease-driving proteins on the outside of cells and drag them into the trash. Its EpiTAC platform - spun out of Jim Wells' lab at UCSF - taps a library of more than 270 internalizing receptors so degradation happens in the right tissue and nowhere else. With $280M raised across Seed, Series A and a 2026 Series B led by GV and Johnson & Johnson, the company has pushed its lead EGFR degrader, EPI-326, into a Phase 1 trial for lung and head-and-neck cancers.
BlossomHill Therapeutics is a San Diego clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company designing small-molecule precision medicines for cancer and autoimmune disease. Founded in 2020 by drug designer J. Jean Cui and biotech veteran Y. Peter Li - the team behind Turning Point Therapeutics (acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb in 2022) - the company is advancing a wholly-owned pipeline led by BH-30643, a first-in-class macrocyclic OMNI-EGFR inhibitor for EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer, and BH-30236, a CLK inhibitor targeting aberrant RNA splicing in AML and high-risk MDS.
J. Jean Cui is a medicinal chemist who has invented three FDA-approved cancer medicines and now runs the biotech she founded to do it again. As scientific founder, President and CEO of BlossomHill Therapeutics in San Diego, she designs small molecules built to outmaneuver the resistance mutations that defeat earlier drugs. Her crizotinib, lorlatinib and repotrectinib all began as chemistry problems she solved at the molecular level. In 2024 she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Her track record includes co-founding Turning Point Therapeutics, which Bristol Myers Squibb bought for $4.1 billion.