TL;DR

For 60 years, drug discovery has chased proteins. But ~85% of disease drivers don't have a druggable protein, making them unreachable for modern medicine. The deeper issue: most disease doesn't start at the protein, it starts in the DNA that codes for it. We built a programmable drug that reads DNA inside the cell, decides if it's diseased, and destroys the cell if it is. One platform, reprogrammed to any disease distinguishable on a DNA level.

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❌ The Problem

Drug discovery hasn't really changed in sixty years. Pick a protein, throw millions of molecules at it, spaghetti at a wall, hoping something sticks. 10 years and $2.6B per drug.

The bigger issue is proteins aren't where most disease starts. Disease starts in the DNA. The protein is downstream - the symptom, not the cause. Which is why ~85% of validated disease drivers have no druggable protein at all. Cancers driven by MYC, TP53, APC; Viral reservoir; clonal populations that drive systematic risk. All "undruggable" with the old protein playbook.

✨ Our Solution

We went straight for the DNA.

We started with a DNA-sensing protein that undergoes a sharp structural change when it finds its target sequence. We hijacked that structure change and turned it into a kill switch:

1. The molecule scans the genome for a hardcoded target sequence.

2. When it finds the target sequence, our drug changes in structure

3. The structural change triggers a kill switch

4. The diseased cell containing the target DNA dies. Neighboring healthy cells are untouched.

Same molecular  molecule, new guide → new drug. This means R&D cycle and cost collapses to near 0.

The compounding asset: we already have decades of human genetics telling us which sequences cause which disease. We're not searching for new biology - we're turning genetics that's already in the textbooks into drugs.

⚙️ Our Team

(Left) Jeff Liu - CEO. Oxford PhD in Oncology. Previous startup (Vivid Dx) solved a multi-decade bottleneck in sepsis diagnostics: low biomass isolation. By overcoming this hurdle, we built the world’s fastest diagnostic system - slashing wait times from 5 days to just 30 minutes. Track record of closing institutional rounds - $5M seed and a $10M Pre-Series A.

(Middle) Li-Yao Huang - CSO. Oxford PhD in Biochemistry. Developed a comprehensive discovery-to-validation framework utilizing Cas9 and its derivatives to identify and verify novel therapeutic targets from high-throughput genetic-genetic and genetic-drug interaction data. Scientific lead in molecular biology, cellular assays, construct engineering.

(Right) Steven Lin - CTO. Oxford PhD in Computational Biology. Previously Data Lead at Gutsee Biotech. Developed novel machine learning method to use coevolution biology to identify genetic targets that convey drug resistance in viruses. During SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, led UK biobank analysis of human genetics susceptibility for infections

This will be the most general curative modality for any genetic mutation driven disease ever. Love to chat!

Find us at founders@finaldose.ai