Shasqi is the first YC Bio company to start first-in-human clinical trials for a drug.</p>\n<p>We’re very excited to share <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.shasqi.com/news/2020/10/14/shasqi-announces-click-chemistry-breakthrough-with-first-ever-human-application-in-launch-of-clinical-program/">the news</a> that Shasqi is the first YC Bio company to have a drug enter first-in-human clinical trials<sup id=\"footnoteid1\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote1\">1</a></sup>. Shasqi is developing a novel therapy for cancer that allows a chemotherapy drug to be delivered much more precisely to the tumor. They dosed two cancer patients over the last couple of weeks and their Phase 1 trial’s enrollment is progressing well.</p>\n<p>Shasqi is the first therapeutics company YC funded, back in 2015 when we launched <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/library/4L-how-biotech-startup-funding-will-change-in-the-next-10-years/">YC Bio</a>.</p>\n<p>We started YC Bio because we believed that there were brilliant scientists who wanted to start life science companies, but struggled to find investors who would fund them to get started. We didn’t know him yet, but José Mejia Oneto, the founder of Shasqi, is exactly the kind of scientist we had in mind.</p>\n<p>José has an unusual background: he is both a PhD in organic chemistry and trained in orthopaedic surgery. The idea behind Shasqi draws on both fields, which is probably why Jose was uniquely positioned to see it.</p>\n<p>In 2014, José had just left his medical residency to pursue the idea for Shasqi. To learn the basics of starting a company, he watched YC’s Startup School talks. When he heard that YC had started funding biotech startups, he applied.</p>\n<p>During the YC program, José made incredibly rapid progress. In just three months, he was able to show in a breast cancer mouse model that his new treatment approach outperformed conventional chemo. Since then, we’ve watched Shasqi continue to operate at impressive speed, closing a seed round and then a Series A, and moving rapidly through preclinical studies.</p>\n<p>As exciting as it is for their first drug to enter clinical testing, Shasqi’s vision goes much further. Its core technology, Click Chemistry Activated Protodrug Against Cancer (CAPAC), is a true platform can be used beyond chemotherapies and small molecules, into peptides, antibodies, cytokines, and other types of cancer therapies &#8211; anytime you want a cancer drug at a specific area of the body. It is based on click chemistry, a powerful technique that is used widely in the lab but has not been used in humans before. In the future, Shasqi’s technology could underlie dozens of approved drugs.</p>\n<p>We couldn’t be more proud to have gotten to play a small role in helping Shasqi get started.</p>\n<p><strong>Notes</strong><br />\n<b id=\"footnote1\">1.</b> To be specific, other YC Bio companies have had drugs in human clinical trials through research IND’s and expanded access IND’s. Shasqi is the first to have a commercial IND, which is what is required to get a drug approved for general use.<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid1\">↩</a></p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1104510","feature_image":null,"featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2020-10-13T23:00:38.000-07:00","updated_at":"2021-10-20T10:52:26.000-07:00","published_at":"2020-10-13T23:00:38.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71097","name":"Jared Friedman","slug":"jared-friedman","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Jared.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was cofounder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/jared-friedman/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117e","name":"Biotech","slug":"biotech","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/biotech/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71097","name":"Jared Friedman","slug":"jared-friedman","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Jared.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was cofounder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/jared-friedman/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117e","name":"Biotech","slug":"biotech","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/biotech/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/shasqi-first-in-human-clinical-trials/","excerpt":"Shasqi [http://shasqi.com] is the first YC Bio company to start first-in-human\nclinical trials for a drug.\n\nWe’re very excited to share the news\n[https://www.shasqi.com/news/2020/10/14/shasqi-announces-click-chemistry-breakthrough-with-first-ever-human-application-in-launch-of-clinical-program] \nthat Shasqi is the first YC Bio company to have a drug enter first-in-human\nclinical trials1. Shasqi is developing a novel therapy for cancer that allows a\nchemotherapy drug to be delivered much more pre","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},"mentions":[],"related_posts":[{"id":"6320f7135142100001443588","uuid":"bf8c1a96-40dd-4e9a-9353-8d33830a1d04","title":"YC’s 1st Health and Bio Summit","slug":"ycs-1st-health-and-bio-summit","html":"<p>We’re excited to announce the first <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ychealthandbiosummit2022.splashthat.com//">YC Health and Bio Summit</a> that will take place in San Francisco on October 21, 2022. </p><p>The half day conference will feature bio and healthcare founders and investors who will tell their stories and share advice for entrepreneurs who are just getting started. </p><p><strong>Speakers include:</strong><br>Vineeta Agarwala, General Partner, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://a16z.com//">a16z
Ivana Djuretic, Co-founder and CSO, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://asherbio.com//">Asher Bio</a><br>Rachel Rea, Sr. Director, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/index.html/">Medtronic
Cami Samuels, Partner, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.venrock.com//">Venrock
Tanay Tandon, Co-founder and CEO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/athelas/">Athelas
Sid Viswanathan, Co-founder and CEO, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://truepill.com//">TruePill
and more to be announced<br><br>When people think of Y Combinator, what often comes to mind first are the software companies that got their start with YC – companies like Airbnb, DoorDash and Stripe. But within the last 5 years, YC has funded over 500 healthcare and bio startups, 9 of which are now billion dollar companies. We’ve quietly become the largest seed stage funder of bio startups in the world. We're looking forward to sharing what we’ve learned from funding hundreds of founders and working alongside them as their companies have grown. <br><br>If you’re in the early stages of starting a bio startup or are considering starting one, we hope you join us. <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ychealthandbiosummit2022.splashthat.com//">Sign up to attend here</a>.</p>","comment_id":"6320f7135142100001443588","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/09/biosummit.jpeg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-09-13T14:33:07.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-09-14T09:01:34.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-09-14T08:55:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"We’re excited to announce the first YC Health and Bio Summit that will take place in San Francisco on October 21, 2022. \nThe half day conference will feature bio and healthcare founders and investors who will tell their stories and share advice for entrepreneurs who are just getting started. ","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71072","name":"Surbhi Sarna","slug":"surbhi-sarna","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/09/1563221214332.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Surbhi is a group partner at Y Combinator. Prior to YC, Surbhi was CEO of nVision Medical, which was acquired by Boston Scientific.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/surbhi-sarna/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71179","name":"YC Events","slug":"yc-events","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-events/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117e","name":"Biotech","slug":"biotech","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/biotech/"},{"id":"6321041a51421000014435a2","name":"Healthcare","slug":"healthcare","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/healthcare/"},{"id":"6321041a51421000014435a3","name":"#12861","slug":"hash-12861","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"6321041a51421000014435a4","name":"#1272","slug":"hash-1272","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"625df7af54a948000183a458","name":"#1635","slug":"hash-1635","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71072","name":"Surbhi Sarna","slug":"surbhi-sarna","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/09/1563221214332.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Surbhi is a group partner at Y Combinator. Prior to YC, Surbhi was CEO of nVision Medical, which was acquired by Boston Scientific.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/surbhi-sarna/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/ycs-1st-health-and-bio-summit/","excerpt":"We’re excited to announce the first YC Health and Bio Summit that will take place in San Francisco on October 21, 2022. The half day conference will feature bio and healthcare founders and investors who will tell their stories and share advice for entrepreneurs who are just getting started.","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71b68","uuid":"ec09b678-f338-4c3c-8afc-ad0295e0befd","title":"YC and Ginkgo Bioworks announce new partnership for synthetic biology startups","slug":"yc-and-ginkgo-bioworks-announce-new-partnership-for-synthetic-biology-startups","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ginkgobioworks.com//">Ginkgo Bioworks</a> was the first bio company YC funded, back in summer 2014, which makes us especially delighted to <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ginkgobioworks.com/2019/09/16/building-a-platform-for-startups//">announce a new partnership between YC and Ginkgo.</p>\n<p>Ginkgo Bioworks programs cells. They program them to produce flavors, fragrances, cannabinoids, food proteins, and more. To do that, they have built the world’s most advanced compiler and debugger of genetic code for the rapid engineering of new organisms.</p>\n<p>Today, Ginkgo’s core business is programming cells for large companies like Bayer and Roche. But these are multi-million dollar deals that are out of the reach of startups. Ginkgo’s new deal will make it possible for startups to access the same platform.</p>\n<p>Ginkgo Bioworks will offer to program cells for YC companies doing qualifying synthetic biology projects on a $0 down basis. Instead of charging, Ginkgo will get equity. Their equity ownership will be based on achieving technical milestones, so it’s essentially a risk free deal for the companies. Ginkgo will effectively be making a big in-kind R&amp;D investment in these companies. Before engaging with YC companies, Ginkgo will need to vet the projects for technical feasibility and IP conflicts. But a broad range of projects will qualify, and I expect that the right companies can save years and millions of dollars by taking advantage of this deal.</p>\n<p>YC has funded many synthetic biology companies, working on products from industrial chemicals to food ingredients to cosmetics to therapeutics. In the past, companies like this had to make major investments upfront in organism engineering before they could manufacture anything. With this deal from Ginkgo, the next generation of synthetic biology companies will have the option to start by leveraging Ginkgo rather than building lab infrastructure in-house.</p>\n<p>Ginkgo providing startups access to their platform is a big step in the shift that we see towards the AWSification of biology. Ginkgo now joins YC companies like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.culturebiosciences.com//">Culture Biosciences</a>, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.atomwise.com//">Atomwise, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://excepgen.com//">Excepgen that are making it possible for bio companies to use existing building blocks rather than doing everything from scratch. As this trend accelerates, it will become faster and cheaper for new bio companies to get started.</p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1103931","feature_image":null,"featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2019-09-15T23:00:00.000-07:00","updated_at":"2021-10-20T10:53:35.000-07:00","published_at":"2019-09-15T23:00:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71097","name":"Jared Friedman","slug":"jared-friedman","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Jared.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was cofounder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/jared-friedman/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117e","name":"Biotech","slug":"biotech","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/biotech/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71097","name":"Jared Friedman","slug":"jared-friedman","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Jared.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was cofounder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/jared-friedman/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117e","name":"Biotech","slug":"biotech","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/biotech/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/yc-and-ginkgo-bioworks-announce-new-partnership-for-synthetic-biology-startups/","excerpt":"Ginkgo Bioworks was the first bio company YCfunded, back in summer 2014, which makes us especially delighted to announce anew partnership between YC and Ginkgo.Ginkgo Bioworks programs cells. They program them to produce flavors,fragrances, cannabinoids, food proteins, and more.","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71b57","uuid":"ac166956-8162-4f68-acc3-1d5705630a5c","title":"How Biotech Startup Funding Will Change in the Next 10 Years","slug":"how-biotech-startup-funding-will-change-in-the-next-10-years","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><p>Back when YC was getting started about 10 years ago, Paul Graham wrote <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.paulgraham.com/webstartups.html/">some <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.paulgraham.com/future.html/">essays that predicted the way startup fundraising would change in the next decade &#8211; accurately, it turns out. Paul Graham predicted that there would be way more startups, that they’d be cheaper to start, that new kinds of investors would fund them, that founders would be more technical, and that founders would keep control of their companies. All of those seem to have come true.</p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve noticed that raising money for a biotech or other life science<sup id=\"footnoteid1\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote1\">1</a></sup> company in 2019 looks a lot like raising money for a tech company 10 years ago. Since then, fundamental forces caused fundraising for tech companies to change dramatically. I see those same forces that Paul Graham wrote about happening with biotech companies now. And I believe that they are going to change biotech fundraising very much the way they changed tech company fundraising.</p>\n<h3>How tech startup fundraising changed from 2005 to now</h3>\n<p>In 2005, when Y Combinator started, there was already a well developed ecosystem of venture capital firms in Silicon Valley and Boston. But access to those venture capital firms was limited.</p>\n<p>VCs preferred to fund companies that already seemed like a sure bet &#8211; in other words, were far along. They also preferred to fund MBAs with previous executive experience and shied away from unproven teams with technical founders. Because they had a lock on the funding market, they asked for onerous financial terms and often replaced founders with favored executives. The only model of institutional seed funding was the “business incubator” model, where VC firms would fund well-connected founders they knew and incubate them in their office.</p>\n<p>Then, the cost to start a tech company plummeted. It plummeted because new infrastructure was created: a combination of open source software, modern web frameworks, SaaS developer tools, cloud hosting, and better distribution channels. This meant that a lot of technical founders, who couldn&#8217;t raise money from VCs off a PowerPoint, were able to launch a product and get users with minimal funding. Once they had proven that their idea had merit, they could use their traction to raise funding.</p>\n<p>Companies like this now only needed a small amount of money to get started, but there wasn’t any place to get it, because institutional investors didn’t make small investments. This was the key insight that led to the creation of YC, and also to the hundreds of institutional seed funds that sprung up to take advantage of the new opportunity. Easy access to flexible, institutional seed funding led to an explosion of tech startups, and today this is the default path for tech startups to get started.</p>\n<p>Because these companies wouldn’t raise VC until they were much further along and had leverage, the balance of power shifted. Founders increasingly retained control of their company. Investors lost the power to fire founders and bring in favored executives. And when they did, they realized something surprising: despite their inexperience, the founders were often the right people to run the company.<sup id=\"footnoteid2\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote2\">2</a></sup></p>\n<h3>What’s happening now with biotech companies</h3>\n<p>Today, early stage biotech funding is dominated by the “venture creation model”. In the venture creation model, the VC firm creates the company. They have an initial idea and put together a team of favored executives, often from their pool of entrepreneurs-in-residence, to run it. The startup is typically incubated out of the VC’s offices. The VC invests a large amount of money upfront and takes a controlling ownership stake.</p>\n<p>Just as VC-incubated tech companies made sense when tech companies were expensive to start, this model made sense when the cost to start a biotech company was high. Until recently, no one could get anything done before a VC wrote a $10M check, so this was the only way to get started.</p>\n<p>But that’s no longer the case. Just like new infrastructure brought down the cost to start a tech company, new infrastructure has brought down the cost of doing biology dramatically. Today, founders can make real progress proving a concept for a biotech company for much less, often as little as $100K. There are <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://wuxibiologics.com/">low <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://evotec.com/">cost <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://chempartner.com/">CROs that will do scientific work for a fee. Companies like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.scienceexchange.com//">Science Exchange</a> make access to CROs and scientific supplies instantaneous and cost effective to small companies. It’s easy to rent <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://mbcbiolabs.com//">fully equipped</a> <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.berkeleybiolabs.com//">lab space</a> by the bench, and there are <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.quartzy.com//">companies to help you <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.happilabs.org//">stock it</a>. Affordable lab robots from companies like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://opentrons.com//">OpenTrons make it possible to automate batch experiments, and computational drug discovery from companies like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.atomwise.com//">Atomwise allows some experiments to be done completely in silico. Companies like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.cognitionip.com//">Cognition IP</a> are bringing down the cost of filing patents, and companies like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.enzyme.com//">Enzyme are streamlining FDA submission.</p>\n<p>Because of this infrastructure, bio companies routinely clear major scientific hurdles during YC’s short program. Often therapeutics companies are able to show that their concept is effective in animal models. Diagnostic companies can show success with human samples. Synthetic biology companies successfully engineer cell lines.</p>\n<p>I’ll give a couple of examples from recent YC companies.</p>\n<p>In 2015, Jose Mejia Oneto was an MD/PhD who left orthopaedic surgery residency to pursue an idea for a way to localize the delivery of chemotherapy. When Jose applied to YC, he had developed the technique in academia but hadn&#8217;t yet tried applying it to therapeutics in animals. When he was admitted to YC, he founded <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.shasqi.com//">Shasqi. Using just the funding from YC, he was able to show in less than three months in a breast cancer mouse model that his localized delivery outperformed conventional chemo.</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://athelas.com//">Athelas makes a device that does at-home blood tests for oncology patients, using a new computer vision based technique. The founders Tanay and Deepika started the company while still in college and were able to make a working prototype with just $40K in investment. During YC they were able to run a 350 patient initial study that showed very good results. Their device is now FDA cleared, and they’re serving thousands of patients.<sup id=\"footnoteid3\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote3\">3</a></sup></p>\n<p>Of course, running clinical trials for drugs remains very expensive<sup id=\"footnoteid4\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote4\">4</a></sup>, and biotech companies will ultimately need to raise tons of money to deliver on their initial promise. But this is not too different from tech companies. The biggest YC (software) companies have each raised over $1B. The important part is that these companies were able to <em>get started</em> with less than $100K and to de-risk their idea enough to raise more money later.</p>\n<h3>Predictions for the future</h3>\n<p>Because you can start cheaply, it’s now possible to start a biotech company the way people start a tech company. By raising money incrementally, rather than a giant amount upfront, you can keep control of your company. And you can work on your own idea, not just ideas that VCs come up with.</p>\n<p>This new path has drawn a new kind of biotech founder. Many of the biotech founders we see at YC are grad students or postdocs<sup id=\"footnoteid5\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote5\">5</a></sup>. Previously their career options were to stay in academia or to join a big pharma company. Starting their own company is now a viable third option.</p>\n<p>If this plays out the way it did in 2005, we&#8217;ll see an explosion in the funding options for biotech companies. Many traditional biotech investors are still looking for the controlling legal terms that went out of vogue in tech in the early 2000&#8217;s. But just like what happened with tech investing, a new crop of biotech and tech/biotech crossover funds have created a vibrant new bio seed investor ecosystem. As a result, YC bio companies now typically raise $1-5M seed rounds after each batch.</p>\n<p>Even more exciting, this would mean we&#8217;re still at the beginning of an explosion in the number of biotech companies. And more of these companies will look like tech companies: instead of being run by VCs and hired execs, they’ll be run by the founders who care about their ideas, and who will sustain that passion building companies they love and that change the world for the better.</p>\n<p><strong>Notes</strong><br />\n<b id=\"footnote1\">1.</b> It’s common to use the word “biotech” to describe specifically therapeutics companies. I use it this way as well, but most of this post applies to all life science companies &#8211; anything related to biology.<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid1\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote2\">2.</b> Actually, this trend started with top VCs earlier, basically for the reasons Ben Horowitz <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://a16z.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos//">wrote about</a> in 2010. But I think the rise of institutional seed funding accelerated it.<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid2\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote3\">3.</b> The point here is not that these companies will ultimately succeed—we don&#8217;t know that yet. My point is that with just a seed investment and a few months, they managed to go as far along the curve as companies that had to raise millions of dollars before.<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid3\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote4\">4.</b> Though companies like YC’s <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.curebase.com//">Curebase and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://biocomcro.org/cro/nucleus-network//">Nucleus in Australia are chipping away at that.<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid4\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote5\">5.</b> Certainly not all of them. We’ve also backed many founders who came out of industry, along with MD’s and faculty.<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid5\">↩</a></p>\n<p><em>Thanks to Dan Gackle, Abe Heifets, Elizabeth Iorns, Stephanie Simon, Geoff Ralston, Diego Rey, Uri Lopatin, Ethan Perlstein, Joe Betts-Lacroix, Jose Mejia Oneto, Tanay Tandon, and Thomas Folliard for reading drafts of this.</em></p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1103819","feature_image":null,"featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2019-08-05T02:00:15.000-07:00","updated_at":"2021-10-20T10:53:56.000-07:00","published_at":"2019-08-05T02:00:15.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71097","name":"Jared Friedman","slug":"jared-friedman","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Jared.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was cofounder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/jared-friedman/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117e","name":"Biotech","slug":"biotech","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/biotech/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7116d","name":"Essay","slug":"essay","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/essay/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71097","name":"Jared Friedman","slug":"jared-friedman","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Jared.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was cofounder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/jared-friedman/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117e","name":"Biotech","slug":"biotech","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/biotech/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/how-biotech-startup-funding-will-change-in-the-next-10-years/","excerpt":"Back when YC was getting started about 10 years ago, Paul Graham wrote some essays that predicted the way startupfundraising would change in the next decade – accurately, it turns out.","reading_time":6,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null}]},"url":"/blog/shasqi-first-in-human-clinical-trials","version":null,"rails_context":{"railsEnv":"production","inMailer":false,"i18nLocale":"en","i18nDefaultLocale":"en","href":"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/shasqi-first-in-human-clinical-trials","location":"/blog/shasqi-first-in-human-clinical-trials","scheme":"https","host":"www.ycombinator.com","port":null,"pathname":"/blog/shasqi-first-in-human-clinical-trials","search":null,"httpAcceptLanguage":"en, *","applyBatchLong":"Winter 2024","applyBatchShort":"W2024","applyDeadlineShort":"October 13","ycdcRetroMode":true,"currentUser":null,"serverSide":true},"id":"ycdc_new/pages/BlogPage-react-component-c813d7d3-be19-4b2c-a374-2a1c557fc472","server_side":true}" data-reactroot="">