[panabee]

this is an awesome idea and a very lucid explanation. good luck!

apologies if this is wildly inaccurate, but is it fair to characterize your startup as helping people create custom drugs the same way ARM helped people create custom chips? from the outside, it seems like there could be intriguing parallels.

[mc-robinson]

Thanks, really interesting parallel -- though I can't say I'm intimately familiar with how ARM's model works. I'll definitely do some reading.

But yes, we are very interested in helping people get made what they want to get made. It often falls into two situations:

(1) If the customer knows exactly the custom design they want to get made, we can help them find the best way to purchase or synthesize it. In many cases, customers may have trouble coordinating with CROs themselves, finding the best building blocks and route to the molecule, and dealing with logistics. We try to help ease that pain.

(2) The customer has a specific target they want to hit and they need just the right small molecule to "fit" in it. We also help with this, mainly through partnerships. And our thinking is that good design of small molecule inhibitors (such as one targeting the COVID main protease) involves expert knowledge of what can be quickly made and tested to help guide further design.

Lastly, we also work on suggesting molecules that may be slightly different from what the customer thinks they want, but may show similar activity -- and will be much easier to make.

[panabee]

if the comparison is accurate, the world you're enabling is one where custom drugs are as prevalent as custom chips and chem labs act as "foundries" to produce drugs. the role you play is to help customers with the design layer of the drug stack. if the parallels between the drug and semiconductor industries hold true, this framing would make it easier for investors to grasp the (massive) potential.

in the end, if your value tilts more toward logistics than IP, you may want to mine chemistry.com (?) for lessons, a startup from the dot-com boom funded by john doerr and kleiner perkins. the grand vision was to disrupt and streamline the logistics of the chemical industry.

[morraa]

Thanks for this. Always keen to learn from older startups but I was unable to find the company you're referring to -- any idea as to the name?

[panabee]

Sorry, the startup was named Chemdex (later Ventro). One article summarizing its downfall: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jun-24-fi-14133.... There were others like ChemConnect, but Chemdex was the most high-profile.

If the article is correct, high costs for building and maintaining the "Amazon for chemicals" were the primary cause of failure.

Many great ideas are a matter of when, not if. Knowing when to launch is as critical for entrepreneurs as is knowing when to buy for investors.

A modern Chemdex might thrive like the modern Webvan (ie Instacart) because if costs were the cause of death, a cloud infrastructure would address this issue.

Obviously, this is a very different model from the ARM model.

Hopefully one of these comparisons can offer helpful insights.

[O_H_E]

Yes, in the big picture, your model is quite like ARM's.