ucsf-spinout
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Nikole Kimes Took the Scenic Route to the CEO’s Chair
She studied coral ecosystems, joined the Peace Corps and went looking for a science that could hold all her interests at once. Then a UCSF discovery turned a self-described meandering career into a lesson in how founders are really made: one unfamiliar job at a time.
Siolta Therapeutics
Siolta Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company spun out of UCSF that develops defined-consortia live biotherapeutic products to prevent and treat diseases rooted in a disrupted microbiome. Its lead program, STMC-103H, is an oral multi-strain therapy aimed at preventing atopic diseases such as atopic dermatitis and food allergy in newborns, built on the company's proprietary Precision Symbiotics Platform.
EpiBiologics
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.