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 – 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":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71bf2","uuid":"53b628bf-fca3-42ae-b4ca-e3d6c7eb9e61","title":"11 YC startups hiring for biology, life sciences, chemistry and data informatics roles","slug":"11-yc-startups-hiring-for-biology-life-sciences-chemistry-and-data-informatics-roles","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><p>YC funded our first biotech company, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/ginkgo-bioworks/">Ginkgo Bioworks</a>, in 2014. Since then, we’ve expanded aggressively into all areas of biotech and the life sciences. Today, YC funds more seed stage biotech companies than any other investor.</p>\n<p>To help further the mission of our biotech and hard science startups, YC is now expanding <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/jobs?role=science\%22>YC’s job platform</a> to support science-related roles. The inaugural YC startups range from 3-person companies in our most recent Winter 21 batch to the nearly-public <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/ginkgo-bioworks/">Ginko Bioworks</a> itself.</p>\n<p>Some highlights of open roles on the platform:</p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/noya/">Founding Chemist/Material Scientist at Noya (W21)</a>.</strong></li>\n<li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/gilgamesh-pharmaceuticals/">Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Gilgamesh Pharmaceutical (W20)</a>.</strong></li>\n<li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/rev-genomics/">Plant Biologist at Rev Genomics (S17)</a>.</strong></li>\n<li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/shasqi/">Director of Tumor Genomics at Shasqi (S19)</a>.</strong></li>\n<li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/shasqi/">Lead Scientist, Genome Engineer at MoGen (W21)</a>.</strong></li>\n<li><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/ginkgo-bioworks/">Senior Data Engineer at Ginko Bioworks (S14)</a>.</strong></li>\n</ul>\n<p>At Work at a Startup, you can find hundreds of fast-growing startups and create a single profile to apply to them all. And as YC funds new startups in biotech and life sciences, founders can find your profile and reach out to you directly.</p>\n<p>We welcome you to check out some of the first bio and life science YC startups hiring on the platform, and stay tuned as more go live over the next few months.</p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1104880","feature_image":"https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1454165804606-c3d57bc86b40?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEyfHxjYXJlZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjQzOTM0MDE5&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-08-12T03:59:30.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-02-03T16:21:14.000-08:00","published_at":"2021-08-12T03:59:30.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Today, YC funds more seed stage biotech companies than any other investor.\n\nTo help further the mission of our biotech and hard science startups, YC is now expanding YC’s job platform to support science-related roles.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710bf","name":"Ryan Choi","slug":"rchoi","profile_image":"//www.gravatar.com/avatar/36ba914c5f191f813e96db0296154469?s=250&d=mm&r=x","cover_image":null,"bio":"Ryan works with YC companies to find great engineers — from 2-person startups to larger ones like Airbnb, Stripe and Instacart.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/rchoi/"}],"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":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71177","name":"Jobs","slug":"jobs","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/jobs/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71170","name":"Startups","slug":"startups","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/startups/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71171","name":"Work at a Startup","slug":"work-at-a-startup","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/work-at-a-startup/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71178","name":"#jobs","slug":"hash-jobs","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":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710bf","name":"Ryan Choi","slug":"rchoi","profile_image":"//www.gravatar.com/avatar/36ba914c5f191f813e96db0296154469?s=250&d=mm&r=x","cover_image":null,"bio":"Ryan works with YC companies to find great engineers — from 2-person startups to larger ones like Airbnb, Stripe and Instacart.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/rchoi/"},"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/11-yc-startups-hiring-for-biology-life-sciences-chemistry-and-data-informatics-roles/","excerpt":"YC funded our first biotech company, Ginkgo Bioworks, in 2014. Since then, we’ve expanded aggressively into all areas of biotech and the life sciences. Today, YC funds more seed stage biotech companies than any other investor.","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":"Photo by <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://unsplash.com/@homajob?utm_source=ghost&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit\%22>Scott Graham</a> / <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=ghost&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit\%22>Unsplash%22},{%22id%22:%22638559cc3a008e000176edd4%22,%22uuid%22:%22e7d13ed0-72da-46aa-a877-cb21bda20645%22,%22title%22:%22YC Happy Hour at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference","slug":"yc-happy-hour-at-jp-morgan-healthcare-conference","html":"<p>Join us for a happy hour during the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. </p><p>If you’re a YC alum, an investor, industry leader, or are interested in starting a bio or healthcare company, we’d love to see you there.</p><p><strong>YC at JPM</strong><br>January 10 from 2:30 - 5 pm in San Francisco, CA<br>Appetizers and drinks will be served. <br><br>Space is limited, so sign up <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdtMLHJC2orF1Ua8PAz4V20IZCeHTtTbNdESZtXU84QUPYL8w/viewform?usp=sf_link\%22>here by December 29 and we’ll send you a confirmation and location details by December 30.</p><!--kg-card-begin: html--><center>\n<a class=\"ycdc-retro-btn ycdc-retro-btn-gold mt-[-10px] ml-[13px]\" href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdtMLHJC2orF1Ua8PAz4V20IZCeHTtTbNdESZtXU84QUPYL8w/viewform/" style=\"text-decoration: none;\" title=\"YC Happy Hour at JP Morgan Healthcare Conference\" target=\"_blank\">Sign Up</a>\n</center><!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"638559cc3a008e000176edd4","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/11/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--31-.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-11-28T17:01:00.000-08:00","updated_at":"2022-11-29T08:51:35.000-08:00","published_at":"2022-11-29T08:51:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"Join us for a happy hour during the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco on January 10th. If you’re a YC alum, an investor, industry leader, or are interested in starting a bio or healthcare company, we’d love to see you there.","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":"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":"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":"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":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71183","name":"Event","slug":"event","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/event/"},{"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":"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":"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/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/yc-happy-hour-at-jp-morgan-healthcare-conference/","excerpt":"Join us for a happy hour during the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. ","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":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71b9d","uuid":"50594ce8-759d-49cd-81d7-b34b67610532","title":"Responding to COVID-19","slug":"responding-to-covid-19","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><p>In order to confront the COVID-19 crisis, we need to immediately mobilize global scientific and technical talent. There are already <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/covid/">a number of YC companies</a> that are helping with the crisis, and we’re looking for more startups that, if successful, could alter the trajectory of COVID-19. We’re particularly interested in startups working on:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tests / diagnostics </li>\n<li>Treatments and vaccines</li>\n<li>Equipment for hospitals</li>\n<li>Monitoring and data infrastructure</li>\n</ul>\n<p>We updated our <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs//">Request for Startups</a> page to reflect the addition of this new RFS. More information at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs#covid\">ycombinator.com/rfs#covid</a>.</p>\n<p>Please apply to our next batch at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/apply//">ycombinator.com/apply/. We will fast-track a handful of promising COVID-19 startups through our application process and fund them immediately.</p>\n<p>Additionally, more than 30 YC bio and healthcare companies are helping with the COVID-19 crisis, whether to produce better tests, treatments and vaccines, or resources for hospitals and health systems. Many of these companies need additional talent, introductions to experts, and capital to rapidly scale up their efforts.</p>\n<p>Today, we launched a website — a central hub — to help them reach people who can help. At <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://ycombinator.com/covid/">ycombinator.com/covid, companies have outlined their work, as well as the help they need. Please get in touch with these companies if you can be a resource.</p>\n<p>Already, a dozen investment firms have collectively pledged to invest more than $30M in companies pursuing COVID-19 programs in the coming weeks. If you are an investor and interested in participating, please reach out to the companies directly or email jared@ycombinator.com. We are happy to make introductions.</p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1104245","feature_image":"https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1584036561566-baf8f5f1b144?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDF8fGNvdmlkfGVufDB8fHx8MTY3MDI3MjczNA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&w=2000","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2020-03-25T02:00:12.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-12-05T12:39:06.000-08:00","published_at":"2020-03-25T02:00:12.000-07:00","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/"},{"id":"638a7d499132af0001d1aee9","name":"rfs","slug":"rfs","description":"Request for Startups","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/rfs/"}],"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. 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Shasqi is the first YC Bio company to start first-in-human clinical trials for a drug.
We’re very excited to share the news that Shasqi is the first YC Bio company to have a drug enter first-in-human clinical trials1. 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.
Shasqi is the first therapeutics company YC funded, back in 2015 when we launched YC Bio.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 – 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.
We couldn’t be more proud to have gotten to play a small role in helping Shasqi get started.
Notes 1. 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.↩
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.