Initial Therapeutics is a biotechnology startup that is using artificial intelligence to develop new drugs faster and more efficiently than ever before. The mission of Initial Therapeutics is to identify and develop innovative therapies that can address unmet medical needs and improve the lives of patients. The company is leveraging the latest advances in biotechnology, including genomics, proteomics, and computational biology, to discover new drug targets and develop small-molecule drugs.
Initial Therapeutics has raised $75 million from venture investor Apple Tree Partners to fund its research. The new biotechnology startup aims to treat cancer and other serious illnesses by stopping cells from making disease-causing proteins.
Initial Therapeutics, San Francisco, California, United States, was founded in 2020 by Jamie H.D. Cate, Brian Paegel, and Kevan Shokat. “Initial grew out of conversations between Jamie, Kevan, Brian, and me about work we had each been doing in these intersecting areas of protein synthesis kinetics, ribosome profiling, rapid chemistry, etc., and how we could collaborate to build something new to expand on the idea of selectively modulating protein translation, which we all saw as potentially transformative,” said Spiros Liras, founding CEO of Initial Therapeutics. “The resulting combination of unmatched expertise and technologies brought by our founders grants Initial unique abilities to prosecute this new approach, and we are very excited about its promise to fight certain cancers and other serious illnesses.”
