
Y Combinator Bets on Biotech - bmahmood
http://www.nature.com/news/start-up-investor-bets-on-biotech-1.15096
======
pvnick
Great! This is why I went back to school to get my biochem degree. I was a
data scientist working with hadoop + mahout at a startup and I said "this is
going to revolutionize medicine." When I get my masters in biomedical
engineering in a few years I have a dream to help found a company that applies
big data and machine learning to problems with clinical significance.
Elizabeth, you may end up hearing from me :P

~~~
dbcooper
Look for something beyond target identification, if you can. That is lowest
part of the value chain.

~~~
pvnick
Not sure what you mean by targets, are you talking about enzymes and drug
discovery?

~~~
dbcooper
Typically I would be referring to the protein (or other molecule) that you
want to target with a drug, to either reduce or promote its action.

As wiki puts it:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_discovery#Drug_targets](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_discovery#Drug_targets)

Generally, the "target" is the naturally existing cellular or molecular
structure involved in the pathology of interest that the drug-in-development
is meant to act on.

------
timr
_" The thing I never understood is: shouldn’t the biotech community be happy
that more people are trying to do this and that more people are funding this
work?"_

It's a world where lots of great ideas are underfunded (or not at all),
because the traditional government sources don't have the money needed to
invest in every good idea. Also, it's still generally too expensive to chase
every possible business idea in biotech, and there are plenty of ideas with
academic promise that don't get anywhere because the traditional sources of
investment are too conservative. Scientists get punchy when they see funding
going to "unproven" entrepreneurs, while they're slaving away at research that
is peer-reviewed, but isn't getting any investor attention.

It's good to see YC bringing in outside expertise for this area, because the
likely outcome for amateur angel investment in biotech would be investing in
lots of flashy-but-insubstantial entrepreneurs, while legitimate research
never gets off the bench. In my experience, it's much harder to evaluate
biotech ideas than software.

~~~
sampo
A funny part of the history of biology: NASA established its Life Sciences
office in 1960, and the following decades they funded some pretty influential
research in molecular biology and on the origin of life, which was not getting
funding from more conventional biology funding sources.

Maybe the highlights would be Lynn Margulis and the endosymbiosis theory, and
Carl Woese finding the Archaea in 1977.

References:

JE Strick. 2004. Creating a Cosmic Discipline: The Crystallization and
Consolidation of Exobiology, 1957-1973. Journal of the History of Biology
37:131-180.

[http://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Strick/publication...](http://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Strick/publication/225266412_Creating_a_Cosmic_Discipline_The_Crystallization_and_Consolidation_of_Exobiology_19571973/file/32bfe50f022c9d3a59.pdf)

M Morange. 2007. What history tells us X. Fifty years ago: the beginning of
exobiology. Journal of Biosciences 32(6): 1083-1087.

~~~
dekhn
It's unfortunate that so much of what NASA funds and calls exobiology is such
crap these days.

------
mifeng
The issue isn't so much YC's investment in projects that may not have
scientific rigor, but that of individual investors via crowd-funding
platforms. At an extreme, this results in a company like GoBe raising $1.1
million on IndieGogo with PR and a slick video.

YCombinator has the sophistication and time to vet their investments. If they
want to back something most of the scientific community thinks won't work, all
the best to them. However, raising capital from mom-and-pop investors is
another story.

------
fasteo
This is a wise move.

Let me suggest the mitochondrion as the main target to explore:

\- In a very simple but accurate analogy, a computer will not work properly -
if at all - if the power is not coming. You can have the best hardware; you
can put endless hours to develop the best possible software, but nothing
matters if the power is not coming. \- Mitochondria produce 90% of the energy
- ATP - we need to function. \- Mitochondria are a relatively simple
structures. Its DNA is way smaller and simpler than the nuclear - double helix
- DNA. \- Many health issues seems to be the result of a primary mitochondrial
dysfunction, or \- Many health issues will result in a secondary mitochondrial
dysfunction.

I do have a mutation in my mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA), so

\- I know what I am talking about and \- Yes, I am very biased; my life
depends on this.

~~~
daughart
Mitochondrial diseases don't seem like an easy target because they are really
metabolic and homeostatic disorders, which are very complex. If the main
failure of mitochondrial disorders were a lack of energy production, how could
cancer cells grow faster than regular cells, yet turn off mitochondrial energy
production in favor of anaerobic glycolysis and lactic acid fermentation
(which is much less efficient)? Mitochondria have an under appreciated role in
ion homeostasis, intermediary metabolism, and biosynthesis that seems to be
the cause of many mitochondrial diseases. The mitochondrial genome only codes
for a few proteins, but relies heavily on the nuclear genome for proteins. In
other words, the mitochondria isn't just an isolated power plant; it's an
integrated system that provides power in addition to logic, material
processing, signaling, etc. Sorry to hear about your disorder, fortunately
there are people researching these diseases.

~~~
fasteo
Well said, I thought HN were only for geeks, but you clearly have a solid
biology background.

I agree that faulty mitochondria will break homeostasis and from this point
on, the problem is unsolvable.

But homeostasis will break because:

1\. Plain vanilla energy deficit. Not enough energy. Babies die within the
first days after birth. or 2\. Inefficient - but normal - energy production.
This will produce an excess of free radicals, "emitting" all kinds of weird
signals to the rest of the cell/tissue/body. Most of mitochondrial diseases
and diseases that cause a secondary mitochondrial dysfunction fall in this
category. "The threshold effect" \- mutant mitochondria outnumber healthy
mitochondria as you grow older - will eventually take you to point 1.

Given this, repairing the mitochondria will bring homeostasis back. Currently,
there are 3 lines of thought: 1\. Repair the faulty mitochondria 2\. Allotopic
expression (literally, make backup copies of mitochondria DNA in the nuclear
DNA and let them "express" from here instead of from mtDNA) 3\. Kill faulty
mitochondria. Given that mitochondria go through a fusion/fission cycles every
few days, killing faulty mitochondria will restore a healthy mitochondria
population in a very short period. The underlying genetic defect is still
there, but it causes no harm at all.

I am for 3.; much simpler both technically and legally. The latest in this
regards is
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/emmm.201303672/ab...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/emmm.201303672/abstract)

Thanks for your concert. I didn´t want to be tragic in my original post. My
life depends on my mitochondria, but I am doing relatively well considering my
disease.

For the curious, I have CPEO + myopathy, common mtDNA deletion, 35% mutation
load.

~~~
daughart
I think emerging research in genome engineering and sculpting evolutionary
fitness using genome engineering tools will probably solve these disorders.
However, these technologies have--in my opinion--lower hanging and more
profitable fruit in other biomedical interventions, such as cancer therapy.
They will probably cure mitochondrial disorders as a side-effect, though, and
possibly by small start-ups (since there's such little money in these rare,
one-shot-cure diseases).

I'm a Ph.D. candidate in systems biology.

------
exratione
The SENS Research Foundation has a network of supporters among portions of the
VC crowd in the Bay Area. Some of the halo of attached or associated young
researchers there should explore putting one of their lines of research more
likely to get somewhere interesting soon into YC, see what happens.

A completely baked form of allotopic expression or toolkits for glucosepane
breakdown in tissues could both produce viable and highly useful technology
platforms prior to being far enough along to be applied to the reversal of
aspects of aging. Neither of those seems too far away to be non-viable for
this sort of timescale, and meaningful biotech projects are very cheap these
days if you have access to a provisioned lab.

~~~
delinquentme
When are you submitting a proposal ? Ping me if you want to talk more about
what a project in this space would look like.

~~~
fasteo
Take a look here
[http://www.longecity.org/forum/page/index.html/_/feature/res...](http://www.longecity.org/forum/page/index.html/_/feature/res2013)

We (longecity members) founded this project out of our pockets a few months
ago. I am sure Dr. Matthew 'Oki' O'Connor will love to discuss ideas with you.

------
001sky
One of the side effects of 120k vs 20k opening the model to different
sectors/needs at the earliest stages. What will be interesting to see is the
developments in expertise and what different requirements there are for
managing and mentoring entreprenuers in these different areas. Would be great
to hear some thoughts on that, if not immediately perhaps in a years time or
so.

------
danieltillett
Biotech start-ups are very different to most other technology start-ups. I am
not sure the ecosystem that YC has is really adaptable to "wet" biotech. I
certainly hope I am wrong as biotech could definitely do with new thinking and
approaches to funding.

~~~
collyw
A lot of biotech isn't "wet" these days. I work in a sequencing centre. More
than half of the employees seem to be computer based.

~~~
danieltillett
DNA sequencing software is what my company develops (if you still have any ABI
machines it might be of interest). If your centre is like my customers the
computer based people still need the wet lab people to generate the data.

~~~
collyw
All Illumina here. Yes, of course we have wet lab people, but excluding admin
staff, I think the wet lab staff make up less than half of the workforce.

------
gammarator
SV VCs getting burned in cleantech was apparently not lesson enough?

"One of the key misplaced assumptions that Valley VCs made in cleantech boom
times is that the rapid progress of Moore’s Law could be created for cleantech
with a little bit of VC funding and Valley smarts."

s/clean/bio/g

[http://gigaom.com/2012/02/01/we-can-thank-moores-law-for-
the...](http://gigaom.com/2012/02/01/we-can-thank-moores-law-for-the-vc-
cleantech-bust/)

------
sakai
I find the timing of this and the "New Deal" press releases a bit confusing --
is YC starting to take biotech companies _now_ (like YC S14) or in the next
batch?

I'm assuming the New Deal terms are for S14, but was also surprised to see the
announcement after the applications were all in.

Can anyone clarify / point me to what I've missed?

~~~
henryaj
Mm, I'd also be interested in finding out. The Request for Startups
[[http://ycombinator.com/rfs.html](http://ycombinator.com/rfs.html)] doesn't
mention anything, but then again they don't look like they've been updated in
some time.

I'd be interested in seeing some guidance for nascent biotech companies
wanting to apply, given the focus has been on software for so long.

~~~
tdaltonc
BioTech is a subcategory of FRS10.

------
NDizzle
Is $120k going to be enough to even make a dent in a biotech startup?! It's
years and years and years of hard work before you may even get denied by the
FDA. With all this funny money flying around who has the patience to wait 10
years to maybe see a return?!

~~~
mkempe
There is a need for biotech startups that help navigate FDA regulations. Think
process & documentation for medical solutions, like shovels for gold-miners.

I've been doing consulting work at healthcare manufacturers. The environment
is insane -- constraining, slow, unproductive, depressing. And it's _used_ as
a huge moat.

~~~
mkempe
Down-voting my comment will not make the FDA regulations go away. You will not
bring any biotech products to [edit: medical] market unless you comply with
the FDA (or somehow manage to eradicate it).

Health-related products and services are heavily controlled -- in ways
completely at odds with the common practices of Internet startups. If you
haven't yet had to comply with these regulations, you may want to find out how
onerous they are.

Here is one example: Quality System (QS) Regulation/Medical Device Good
Manufacturing Practices [1], covering: Quality System, Design Controls, and
Human Factors.

They _audit_ your compliance with their regulations. You have to document
everything you do, every decision you make, every change you make. That is not
how startups commonly operate.

[1]
[http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidanc...](http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidance/PostmarketRequirements/QualitySystemsRegulations/)

~~~
technotony
Who say's biotech products have to go via the FDA? There are all kinds of
potential markets with lower or non-existent barriers to market, eg my company
which makes Glowing Plants. These are the areas which make more sense
initially as you really can take a lean startup approach to them.

~~~
dnautics
how's that going? You guys said you would deliver in april, but it looks like
it's been pushed back to june. There are also very few lab-related blog posts,
despite a promise by Mr. Drory in the reddit thread that all intermediate
results, both good and bad would be disclosed. Also, he said a budget would be
disclosed. I haven't seen one on the site yet.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1e5rti/whats_wro...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1e5rti/whats_wrong_with_the_glowing_plant_kickstarter/)

>This will be totally transparent project - we will introduce a novel concept
called "constant peer review" \- In academia no one publish things that didn't
work - we will publish everything.

>We take being a good Steward of our backers funds as #1 priority. Our budget
will also be publish online and you can see where the money went.

Neither of these two things has happened yet.

~~~
technotony
Are you a backer? We've been sharing this information in the backer updates.
Some of this is also to be found on our youtube channel.

With respect to the budget we currently have $230,000 left in the bank. We'll
publish the financials when we are ready to ship.

------
enscr
Interesting move. I've often heard people complain that the best minds are
writing HTML/Javascript when they should be solving real problems (e.g.
medicine/health)... obviously because Tech pays big money. I'm not undermining
the utility of FB & Whatsapp but I feel a larger percentage of the World
population needs better healthcare & medicine. I'd be happy to see the balance
of crazy paying startups shift towards life sciences. What could be a better
incentive to innovate than this. Have a BS/MS/PhD? Good, go hack the body &
decode it. 'x' years from now, there'll be open plugins to debug & fine tune
your body.

~~~
operon
There are also great ("best") minds solving real problems in medicine/health.

They are just a trillion times harder/expensive than writing an app.

~~~
enscr
The barrier to entry for writing an app has been lowered because of
money+innovation in tech. Hoping for same in medicine. Human simulators would
make it so easy to test medicines.

------
pearjuice
I don't think investing should be dumbed down to betting. The public already
has high aversion towards "throwing $120K at [random] companies". YC (and with
them a lot of accelerators/investors) analyze their prospects.

Sure, sometimes there is a chance and an underbelly-feeling involved in
whether a startup should be invested in, but to degrade investments as
"betting" is probably the highest insult an investment/accelerator-firm can
get.

~~~
return0
What should they do instead? Make a hedge fund with the money? Yeah, that
worked out well..

~~~
Fomite
The parent's suggestion is that to refer to a YC investment as a "bet" is a
little bit of a misnomer. It's a targeted, reasoned investment, not "120K on
'Little Devil' to win."

------
tdaltonc
Science has become sclurotic. Teams that are funded outside of state science
system are going to be able to take risks and try things that would be
unthinkable in academia. Each of these teams in an experiment in a different
way to do experiments. All of science will benefit from the results of these
meta-experiments.

~~~
Fomite
My experiences with industry research to date do not particularly back that
up. For every "academia is too conservative", there's a pushback of "Yeah, but
will this be profitable?"

~~~
dnautics
False dichotomy, there are avenues of research that are outside of the
traditional academy (and the 'new tradition' of state-funded science) and
outside of industry. For example, Janelia Farms, run by HHMI. As I alluded to
above, historically, Peter D. Mitchell's work (which garnered him a nobel
prize), as well.

The story of how state-run science funding is broken is exemplified by the
story of Douglas Prasher.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher)

~~~
dekhn
I wouldn't describe Janelia Farms as outside the traditional academy. It's
just a foundation with great facilities and an extremely high bar to entry,
but a low bar for continued funding.

~~~
Fomite
Especially as many HHMI scientists, both within and outside Janelia had very
strong careers within "traditional academy" first.

------
epaladin
Great news, especially after the "biotech is dead" chants from Wall St. for
the last couple of weeks. I hope to see some posts like "XYZ Company (YC ##)
hiring bioinformatics developer" sometime soon!

------
sandipc
"some worry that Silicon Valley's penchant for technology and marketing might
not be compatible with medical research”

I would say that a good portion of medical research IS technology and
marketing, for better or worse.

~~~
return0
Actually the "might not be compatible with medical research" is the great part
about it. Life sciences research often tends to be short-sighted, plagued by
the egos of scientists, the politics of scientific publishing and the fight
for government funding. I hope YC chooses the "incompatible" route.

------
happyscrappy
Responding to criticism of the Immunity Project's lack of peer review:

"If the traditional science community wants to say these things aren’t going
to work, they can keep doing that. That’s what used to happen with software
companies. The Immunity Project may fail, and the next 30 things we fund may
fail — and the whole model is such that that’s OK. We can have 31 failures and
one success, and the model still works great. That’s how we’re designed."

~~~
tdaltonc
I was more struck by this part:

> How many Nature papers are not reproducible? To call out a new bunch of
> people who are trying something different because people are afraid they’ll
> fail is sort of hypocritical given that we don’t really check whether
> anybody else’s results are correct, either.

Peer review is more about politics then reproducibility. Reproducibility is
really important, but Nature doesn't seem to agree.

~~~
collyw
I have a theory with peer review, if it works, it is important and it is
reproducible, then people _will_ reproduce it and build on it. If any of the
three parts are not there, then no one will want / need / be able to reproduce
it, and it will fade into scientific obscurity, while the rest of the
scientific community keep moving forwards.

~~~
omnisci
Or people spend a lot of time and money trying to chase down something that a
ground "found" and published. It's very common to read a paper, think it
sounds good, then try build on it only to find that you can't.

Peer review is completely flawed. Until it's made more transparent, like at
F1000, it's going to continue that way.

Not being a negative Nancy here, but I've been on both sides of the fence
(reviewed and had grants/papers reviewed) and it isn't an efficient system.
Much like many other things in science, it's an antiquated process that needs
to be overhauled to get back to it's "roots".

~~~
collyw
Peer review is not perfect, but its still better than the way the mainstream
media reports the news.

~~~
omnisci
That is 100% true, but that isn't a fair comparison.

Peer review should be open, scientists shouldn't be allowed to choose who
reviews/doesn't review their papers, and the process by which selection is
done needs to be more rigorous.

My suggestion, open it up to everyone in the field and make sure that the
reviewers are identified. Anonymous peer review has the same effect that
anonymous posting on internet forums has, people become e-thugs or just say
things that they shouldn't ever say because they know the reader doesn't know
who they are.

This sounds like it doesn't happen, but you would be surprised that the stuff
that happens behind closed doors. Scientists are people, people are flawed
(which is fine), but that shouldn't hold back scientific discoveries.

