preclinical-research
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Instem and the surprisingly expensive life of a lab result
A discovery is only as useful as the evidence that travels with it. Instem has built a business around helping that evidence survive the journey from laboratory bench to regulatory review.
Zoe Biosciences Found a Longevity Clue in Amish DNA. Now It Has to Turn That Clue Into a Drug
A rare mutation pointed to longer, healthier lives. Zoe's bet is that two drug programs can borrow the biology without borrowing the mutation - and its newest mouse data put obesity, muscle preservation and a very expensive clinical test on the same page.
The Tiny Biotech Betting a Lab-Grown Liver Can Tell Pharma Which Drugs Will Fail
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.
Apeximmune Therapeutics
Apeximmune Therapeutics is a South San Francisco / Burlingame-area biotechnology company developing next-generation antibody therapeutics that harness the immune system to treat cancer and autoimmune disease. Using a proprietary target-discovery platform built on bioinformatic analysis of thousands of tumor RNA-seq transcriptomes, the company has identified more than 30 novel immune targets. Its lead program, AI-306, is a first-in-class antagonist antibody against the novel immune checkpoint AIM-103, and its MEBA platform builds bispecific antibodies that engage macrophages to kill tumor cells. The company closed a $21.3 million Series A in 2025 led by PharmaEssentia.
Cyagen Biosciences
Cyagen Biosciences is a life-sciences contract research organization that builds custom genetically engineered rodent models - knockout, knockin, conditional, and humanized mice and rats - for academic labs and drug developers. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with major operations in China, Japan, and Europe, Cyagen has grown into one of the world's largest suppliers of custom mouse and rat models, complemented by stem-cell products and a fast-growing gene-delivery arm, VectorBuilder, that designs and manufactures viral vectors from research through clinical CDMO work.
Drug Hunter
Drug Hunter is a Boston-based knowledge platform for the scientists who turn molecules into medicines. Founded in 2018 by former Genentech chemist Dennis X. Hu, it distills scientific literature, patents, and early disclosures into searchable, expert-curated insights - molecule search, patent search, courses, flash talks, and a mobile app. More than 200 R&D organizations, including Eli Lilly, Biogen, Merck KGaA, Isomorphic Labs, and the NIH, rely on it. In September 2025 the company raised a seed round led by Teamworthy Ventures.
HistoWiz
HistoWiz is a New York-based histopathology company that turns tissue specimens into publication-quality digital slides in as little as three days. By pairing an automated, robot-driven lab with PathologyMap, a cloud platform hosting one of the world's largest preclinical pathology databases, it gives academic and biotech researchers fast, standardized histology plus AI analysis and access to board-certified pathologists - work that traditionally took weeks of slow, manual lab effort.
Multispan, Inc.
Multispan, Inc. is a Hayward, California biotech that builds the cell lines and assays drug hunters use to interrogate G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), the largest druggable target family in the human genome. Founded in 2004 by Helena Mancebo, the company has assembled one of the industry's largest libraries of clonally derived, GPCR-expressing stable cell lines - 600+ lines and 2,000+ ready-to-use reagents - and pairs them with custom assay development, compound profiling, antibody work, and CRISPR cell engineering. Its MULTISCREEN platform and proprietary HEx high-expression cell technology let pharmaceutical and academic teams screen, profile, and validate candidate drugs against receptors that are notoriously hard to express and measure.