A year of momentum for Founder-led
biotech
Our Founder-led Biotech Summit began with a blog post we published last year with a simple premise: more biotech companies need to be created to tackle society’s most pressing challenges.
Heading into its second year, the movement is picking up steam.
The knowledge of how to build – once rarefied – is rapidly spreading via a grassroots internet community of founders, investors, and scientists. Blogs, substacks, and podcasts make hard won wisdom available for free, leveling the playing field for newcomers.
Academic culture is changing rapidly to support entrepreneurship. Nucleate and Nucleate Dojo, a student-run non-profit, is dissolving walls between institutions and helping create ~80 new teams per year from academia. Many universities are also beginning to build biology makerspaces – a free space to experiment with entrepreneurial ideas.
New institutional research models are forming to change how we fund science, increasing ambition and lowering the burden of grant-writing, and a new crop of emerging biotech VCs surpassed established VCs in activity for the first time in early 2022.
Governments around the world are recognizing the new frontier of biology. The Biden administration announced the creation of ARPA-H and the National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative. Even the long sought attempt to bring down paywalls on federally funded research is finally happening, making the output of life science R&D accessible to anyone.
At Pillar, we’re excited for these new developments and plan to continue to support founders building on this new frontier.
-
beanless coffeeCompound Foods launches Minus Cold Brew — beanless and better for the planet
Minus uses 94% less water and 91% fewer greenhouse gasses than traditional coffee made with beans.
Read more -
AI-powered pathologyPathAI receives FDA 510(k) clearance
Led by Andy Beck, PathAI creates AI-powered technology for pathology research in laboratories and biopharmaceutical companies. Earlier this year, PathAI received 510(k) clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for AISight Dx, a digital pathology platform for the purpose of primary diagnosis in clinical settings.
Read more -
genetically engineered future
Asimov builds tools to program living cells
Asimov is developing a mammalian synthetic biology platform — from cells to software — to enable biotechnologies with outsized impact, with an initial focus on gene therapies, cell therapies, and protein therapeutics.
Read more
-
PathAI receives FDA 510(k) clearance
PathAI Receives Both FDA 510(k) Clearance and CE Mark for AISightTM Dx Platform. Harvard spinout PathAI creates AI-powered technology for pathology research.
Read More
-
Asimov builds tools to program living cells
MIT spinout Asimov is developing a mammalian cell engineering platform to advance the design and manufacture of biologics and gene therapies.
Read More
-
Matterworks develops AI-powered tools to engineer biology
Matterworks' mission is to drive the adoption of metabolomics as a core part of the biotech tool stack.
Read More
-
Molecule announces bio.xyz, the first biotech DAO accelerator
Molecule is a decentralized biotech protocol, building a web3 marketplace for research-related IP.
Read More
-
Guardian Agriculture partners with Wilbur-Ellis
MIT spinout, Guardian Agriculture, has developed the eVTOL, an autonomous drone that fertilizes crops and modernizes the traditional crop-dusting process.
Read More
-
Compound Foods launches Minus beanless cold brew
Minus Coffee creates sustainable beanless coffee using microbes, mimicking the flavor and taste of coffee beans.
Read More
-
Tezza grows plant-based cheese through fermentation
Tezza discovers and designs microbial communities to transform plants into new categories of fermented foods, starting with hard, aged plant-based cheese.
Read More
