Startups

A key part of our mission is to move discoveries from the laboratory into the market.

One way we achieve this is through our faculty, who form startup companies based on their work. The following companies have been founded or co-founded by HSCI scientists:

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Affinia Therapeutics

Founded 2019

Co-founded by HSCI Affiliate Faculty member Luk Vandenberghe, PhD, Affinia Therapeutics is a developer of a platform for rationally designed adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors and gene therapies intended to develop medicines for devastating diseases. The company leverages synthetic and systems biology combined with high-throughput screening and tissue and single-cell resolution for people affected by muscle andcentral nervous system (CNS) diseases with significant unmet needs, thereby providing medical professionals with the rational design of novel vectors and gene therapies with remarkably improved properties.

 

Akouos

Akouos

Founded 2017

HSCI Affiliate Faculty member Luk Vandenberghe, PhD, is a co-founder of Akouos and currently serves as chair of the Scientific Advisory Board. The biotechnology company is developing gene therapies for hearing loss.
Alivio

Alivio Therapeutics

Founded 2016

HSCI Principal Faculty member Jeffrey Karp, PhD, is a co-founder and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Alivio Therapeutics. Alivio is developing novel drug delivery technology for the treatment of inflammatory diseases.
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Amasa Therapeutics

Founded 2015

HSCI Principal Faculty member Khalid Shah, PhD, is the founder of Amasa Therapeutics, a private biotechnology company that focuses on the clinical translation of therapeutic stem cells in cancer patients.
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Audion Therapeutics

Founded 2008

HSCI Affiliate Faculty member Albert Edge, PhD, is a scientific co-founder of Audion Therapeutics, a private biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery, development, and commercialization of drugs and delivery technologies for the treatment of diseases affecting the ear, including hearing loss.

CAMP4 Therapeutics

Founded 2016

CAMP4, founded by Executive Committee Chair Leonard Zon and the Whitehead Institute's Richard Young, is focused on addressing the fundamental cause of disease by controlling the output of genes central to disease. By taking advantage of the gene circuitry code, CAMP4 is able to control gene production through signaling pathways the cell is already utilizing to regulate gene expression. Our predictions enable CAMP4 to have a rapid start to disease treatment, significantly reducing the time and risk to bring new medicines to patients.
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Clear Creek Bio

Founded 2017

Co -founded by HSCI Co-Director David Scadden, MD and Principal Faculty member David Sykes, MD, PhD, the enterprise develops therapies targeting molecular pathways in cancer cells that overcome differentiation blockade.

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CRISPR Therapeutics

Founded 2013

HSCI Principal Faculty member Chad Cowan, PhD, is a scientific co-founder of CRISPR Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company created to translate CRISPR- Cas9, a breakthrough genome-editing technology, into transformative medicines with the potential to cure human genetic diseases.
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Decibel Therapeutics

Founded 2015

Decibel Therapeutics is translating scientific advances in inner ear biology, some of which originate from the laboratory of HSCI Affiliate Faculty member Albert Edge, PhD, into novel therapies for people with hearing loss and tinnitus.
Elevian

Elevian

Founded 2017

Co-founded by HSCI Pincipal Faculty members Richard Lee, MD, Lee Rubin, PhD, and Amy Wagers, PhD, Elevian is developing regenerative medicines to target processes that are the root causes of aging.
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Enclear Therapies

Founded 2018

With co-founders Kevin Eggan, PhD, and Kasper Roet, PhD, EnClear's mission is to improve and extend the lives of genetically defined populations of patients suffering from neurodegenerative disease through the advancement of biomedical science and engineering to develop controlled access, delivery, and modification of cerebrospinal fluid.
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Epizyme

Founded 2007

HSCI Principal Faculty members George Daley MD, PhD and Yi Zhang, PhD, are scientific co-founders of Epizyme, a startup company striving to redefine cancer therapy through targeted medicines for patients with unsolved diseases. It is currently conducting multiple clinical trials to understand the effects of the drug tazemetostat in patients with solid tumors.
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Fate Therapeutics

Founded 2007

HSCI Co -Director David Scadden, MD, and Executive  Committee Chair Leonard Zon, MD, are co-founders of Fate Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of adult stem cell modulators for patients with rare, life­-threatening disorders including certain hematologic malignancies, lysosomal storage disorders, and muscular dystrophies.
Frequency Therapeutics Logo

Frequency Therapeutics

Founded 2015

Co-founded by HSCI Principal Faculty member Jeffrey Karp, PhD, Frequency Therapeutics develops small molecule drugs that activate progenitor cells within the body to restore healthy  tissue, including developing a small molecule that  targets progenitor cells in the inner ear to treat noise-induced hearing loss.
Fulcrum Therapeutics

Fulcrum Therapeutics

Founded 2016

The startup Fulcrum Therapeutics aims to develop medicines to deliver a new future for patients and their families by transforming gene regulation in disease. Affiliate Faculty members Bradley Bernstein, MD, PhD, and Jeannie Lee, MD, PhD, are co-founders.
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Garuda Therapeutics

Founded 2021

Former Principal Faculty member Dhvanit Shah, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Garuda Therapeutics. They have developed a platform for generating off-the-shelf, self-renewing blood stem cells to provide patients with access to consistent, durable, HLA-compatible transgene-free blood stem cell therapies. HSCI Co-Director David Scadden, MD, is a co-founder and Scientific Advisory Board member.
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GenSight Biologics

Founded 2011

HSCI Principal Faculty member Connie Cepko, PhD and Affiliate Faculty member Luk Vandenberghe, PhD, are co-founders of the Paris­based GenSight Biologics. The biopharmaceutical company is dedicated to the development and commercialization of gene therapy­ based treatments of retinal degenerative diseases.
Goldfinch Bio

Goldfinch Bio

Founded 2016

HSCI Executive Committee member Joseph Benventre, MD, PhD, is a scientific co-founder of Goldfinch Bio, a company focused on discovering and developing precision therapies for patients with kidney disease.
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GoodCell

Founded 2017 (as LifeVault Bio)

HSCI Co-Director David Scadden, MD, is a co- founder of LifeVault Bio/GoodCell, a company that collects and stores personalized biology - stem cells, DNA, and blood plasma - for future diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Scadden currently serves as the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board.

Immunitas Therapeutics

Founded 2019

With HSCI Principal Faculty member Mario Suva, MD, PhD and Affiliate Faculty member Kai Wucherpfennig, MD, PhD, both pioneers in the study of the immunobiology of human tumors, the company seeks to advance its first programs, monoclonal antibody therapeutics with single agent activity in preclinical models of oncology, to clinical studies .
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Intellia Therapeutics

Founded 2014

lntellia Therapeutics, co-founded by HSCI Principal Faculty member Derrick Rossi, PhD, is focused on developing and commercializing potentially curative genome editing treatments that can positively transform the lives of people living with severe and life-threatening diseases.
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iPierian

Founded 2007; Acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb 2014

HSCI Co-Director Douglas Melton, PhD, along with Principal Faculty members George Daley, MD, PhD and Lee Rubin, PhD, co-founded iPierian, which is developing therapies that inhibit the progression of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
IVIVA Medical

IVIVA Medical

Founded 2013

HSCI Principal Faculty member Harald Ott, MD is the founder and Chairman of the Board of IVIVA Medical, a company that is developing tissue-engineered treatments for end-stage renal disease.
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Keros Therapeutics

Founded 2015

Keros is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of novel treatments for patients suffering from rare blood and musculoskeletal disorders. HSCI Affiliate Faculty member Paul Yu, MD, PhD is a scientific founder and Scientific Advisory Board member. HSCI Executive Committee member Vicki Rosen, PhD, is a Scientific Advisory Board member.
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Magenta Therapeutics

Founded 2016

HSCI Co -Director David Scadden, MD and Principal Faculty member Derrick Rossi, PhD are scientific co-founders of Magenta Therapeutics, which is focused on improving the patient experience in transplant medicine, with the goal of bringing this lifesaving procedure to more patients.
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Moderna Therapeutics

Founded 2010

HSCI Principal Faculty member Derrick Rossi, PhD translated a discovery in his laboratory into a whole new class of drugs now being developed by Moderna Therapeutics. The Cambridge-based company, which Rossi co-founded, uses messenger RNA to produce human proteins inside patient cells, which offers an innovative way to deliver drugs to a patient.
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MyoKardia

Founded 2012; acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2020

HSCI Affiliate Faculty members Christine Seidman, MD, Jonathan Seidman, PhD and colleagues Leslie Leinwand, PhD and James Spudich, PhD, leveraged their diverse expertise in company formation, myosin motors and heart muscle function, and genetics to form the company with funding from Third Rock Ventures. MyoKardia is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing targeted therapies for the treatment of serious cardiovascular diseases and was purchased by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2020.
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Neomorph

Founded 2020

Principal Faculty scientific founders Scott Armstong, MD, PhD and Benjamin Ebert, MD, PhD, along with Eric Fischer, lead a biotech specializing in the field of protein degradation targeting new small molecule medicines against 'undruggable targets' in a range of therapeutic areas, particularly oncology.

Nocion Therapeutics

Nocion Therapeutics

Founded 2019

HSCI Principal Faculty member Clifford Woolf, MB, BCh, PhD and colleague Bruce Bean, PhD, identified a novel class of sodium channel inhibitors that inhibits signaling in activated pain or itch neurons but spare all other neurons. This provides for targeted and sustained relief of conditions such as cough, itch, pain, and inflammation.

Odylia Therapeutics

Odylia Therapeutics

Founded 2018

HSCI Affiliate Faculty member Luk Vandenberghe, PhD is a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of Odylia Therapeutics. The nonprofit organization accelerates clinical trials for gene therapies to treat rare eye diseases.

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ProteoThera, Inc.

Founded 2012

Co-founded by HSCI Principal Faculty member Richard Lee, MD, ProteoThera, Inc. is an early stage biotechnology company that is advancing drug targeting technology and is improving the clinical efficacy and safety of FDA-approved therapeutics to create a new paradigm in the treatment of autoinflammatory diseases and in tissue regeneration.

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Q-State Biosciences

Founded 2014

Q-State Biosciences performs optical electrophysiology studies in human iPS-derived models of neuronal and cardiac diseases. The company combines the all-optical electrophysiology platform developed in the lab of HSCI Principal Faculty member Adam Cohen, PhD with the stem cell-based disease modeling expertise of Principal Faculty member Kevin Eggan, PhD to provide game-changing solutions to customers in pharma and academia, as well as to individual patients.

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QurAlis

Founded 2017

Founded by HSCI Faculty Kevin Eggan, PhD, Kasper Roet, PhD, and Clifford Woolf, MD, PhD, the company is specifically focused on discovering and developing new therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common form of motor neuron disease.

Riparian Pharmaceuticals

Riparian Pharmaceuticals

Founded 2014

Riparian, co-founded by HSCI Affiliate Faculty member Guillermo Garcia-Cardena, PhD, is deploying hemodynamics as a tool to discover first-in-class therapeutics that act on new pathways at an earlier stage of disease than is possible today.

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Sana Biotechnology

Founded 2019

Sana Biotechnology | Founded 2019

Sana Biotechnology, co-founded by HSCI Principal Faculty member Chad Cowan, PhD, is focused on creating and delivering engineered cells as medicine for patients

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Scholar Rock

Founded 2012

HSCI Executive Committee Chair Leonard Zon, MD is co-founder of Scholar Rock, which is developing a new class of biologic therapeutics, called niche activators, to target disease-causing proteins. The therapeutics, based on growth activator research by Zon and co-founder Timothy Springer, PhD of Harvard Medical School, have a wide range of disease applications including autoimmune diseases, fibrosis, and diseases of musculoskeletal systems.

Semma Therapeutics

Semma Therapeutics

Founded 2015

Utilizing and building on scientific breakthroughs from the laboratory of HSCI Co-Director Douglas Melton, PhD, Semma Therapeutics was founded to develop transformative therapies for patients who currently depend on insulin injections. Semma was purchased by Vertex in 2019.

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Sentien Biotechnologies, Inc.

Founded 2008

HSCI Affiliate Faculty member Biju Parekkadan, PhD is a co-founder and director of Sentien Biotechnologies, which is developing new products that combine cell therapeutics with drug delivery systems to overcome the limitations of conventional cell administration.

Silicon Tx logo

 

Silicon Therapeutics

Founded 2016

Founded on work established in the BIDMC lab of HSCI Principal Faculty member Elliot Chaikof, MD, PhD, Silicon Therapeutics (STx) is a computational drug discovery company creating novel small molecule drugs for difficult to target proteins.

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Tissium

Formerly Gecko Biomedical | Founded 2013
Rebranded May, 2019

HSCI Principal Faculty member Jeffrey Karp, PhD took a discovery from his lab to co-found Gecko Biomedical, a medical device company dedicated to the development and commercialization of novel biodegradable bio-inspired adhesives in the field of surgery, with a key focus on minimally invasive surgery. Karp is now chairman of the company's clinical and scientific advisory boards.

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Twentyeight-Seven Therapeutics

Founded 2016

Twentyeight-Seven Therapeutics was founded by HSCI Principal Faculty members George Daley, MD, Richard Gregory, PhD, and Frank Slack, PhD, along with Affiliate Faculty member Piotr Sliz, PhD. The company is developing small molecules that can modulate levels of miRNAs by targeting proteins that interact with these miRNAs.

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Yumanity Therapeutics

Founded 2014

HSCI Principal Faculty member Vikram Khurana, MD, PhD is a scientific co-founder of Yumanity Therapeutics, a company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that aims to develop drugs for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's. A key component of Yumanity's discovery platform is the use of patient-derived stem cells for modeling the protein-misfolding pathologies that characterize these diseases.