Indi Molecular is a Culver City, California biotech developing a synthetic alternative to antibodies called Protein Catalyzed Capture (PCC) agents - small, stable cyclic peptides built with click chemistry that bind protein targets with antibody-like specificity while behaving like small-molecule drugs. Spun out of Caltech chemist James Heath's lab in 2013, the company applies its platform to targeted oncology therapeutics and PET imaging agents, aiming to reach targets long considered undruggable, including KRAS G12D pancreatic cancer and ovarian cancer.
PIC Therapeutics is a Natick, Massachusetts biotechnology company developing small-molecule precision medicines that target cancer at the level of protein translation. Rather than chasing individual oncogenes one at a time, PIC modulates the Pre-Initiation Complex (PIC) and the translation factor eIF4E - a convergence point for many oncogenic signaling pathways - to selectively shut down the production of cancer-driving proteins while sparing healthy cells. Founded on the research of Harvard structural biologist Gerhard Wagner and led by CEO Katherine Bowdish, the company is advancing an allosteric eIF4E modulator toward first-in-human studies in drug-resistant metastatic breast cancer, backed by a $35M Series A led by OrbiMed.
Joel Barrish is the President and CEO of Avilar Therapeutics, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company pioneering extracellular protein degradation. A medicinal chemist by training with a Ph.D. from Columbia University, Barrish spent 28 years at Bristol Myers Squibb rising to VP and Global Head of Discovery Chemistry, co-inventing blockbuster drugs including SPRYCEL (dasatinib) for leukemia. After stints as CSO at Achillion Pharmaceuticals and co-founder/President at Jnana Therapeutics, he founded Avilar in 2019 to build the ATAC and MTAC platforms - bifunctional molecules that hijack the body's own cellular recycling machinery to degrade disease-causing proteins outside the cell, a class of targets previously undruggable. Avilar has raised $75 million in total seed financing.
Olema Oncology is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in San Francisco that develops targeted small-molecule therapies for ER+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer and other women's cancers. Its lead candidate, palazestrant (OP-1250), is an oral complete estrogen receptor antagonist and selective ER degrader now in two Phase 3 trials, while a second program, OP-3136, is a KAT6 inhibitor in Phase 1. Olema's bet is that better-designed oral endocrine therapy can overcome the resistance that limits today's standard of care.
Delphia Therapeutics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech pioneering a new field of cancer biology it calls activation lethality - the idea that cancer cells with oncogenic mutations live dangerously close to the upper limit of how much pathway activity they can tolerate, and can be pushed past it. Rather than blocking cancer signals like most drugs, Delphia designs targeted activators that overload cancer's stress pathways until the cell dies, aiming for durable benefit and a way around drug resistance. Founded in 2024 by Kevin Marks, Bill Sellers and Mike Dillon, it launched with a $67 million Series A led by GV, Nextech Invest, Polaris Innovation Fund and Alexandria Venture Investments.
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.