The breathless tone of this TechCrunch article reminds me of this commentary on Atomwise (also a YC biotech): <a href="http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2015/03/26/tone_it_down.php" rel="nofollow">http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2015/03/26/tone_it_down...</a><p>In my opinion, YC has no idea what they're doing in biotech. Here's a much more credible neuro disease startup that was recently launched: <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/05/14/former-genentech-researchers-raise-217-million-for-company-to-fight-alzheimers-and-parkinsons/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/05/14/former-...</a><p>I'm sure Alice and Jason are very intelligent and motivated, but the smart money's on Marc Tessier-Lavigne any day of the week. The industry dynamics of biotech are totally different - the small and nimble upstart with unconventional thinking rarely wins.
I understand that journalists often create a simplified straw-man to contrast to a new and innovative upstart, however as someone who once served as an industry analyst at the intersection of life science discovery and technical computing this article's characterization of how big pharma approach drug discovery seems almost cartoon like in its stereotyping of the discovery and development process at big pharma.<p>Can you point us to a link that has a more substantive discussion of the approach that you are taking?
Genomic vapor ware.<p>When will people understand the problem with genomics isn't complexity, it is a lack of raw data.<p>We simply have not collected enough annotation on what every gene does and how it interacts. Without that information, you have diddly-squat.
> But Verge Genomics is able to cure brain diseases 1000x more quickly than big pharma by using algorithms<p>Guffaw. Tech journalism at its finest. The company sounds great, but I'm not sure Techcrunch is really doing them a lot of favors by just making stuff up.
It's always great to see new approaches to pharmaceutical development. It's a field that's desperately in need of a better approach.<p>I do have to wonder, however, when having a focus on neurodegenerative diseases that are largely seen as proteopathies, how useful a method that is presumably targeting only gene expression can be, which is what I assume you're targeting. If the view of diseases like PD as prion-like diseases with perhaps randomly misfolded proteins that recruit others and propagate through the brain is correct, for example, will targeting gene expression be able to do that much beyond treating symptoms? And if targeting genes that are not necessarily<p>I'm divided on the usual search-of-preapproved-drug approach too. On the one hand, it vastly lowers costs, speeds up trials, and can actually make development somewhat feasible for startups, but on the other, it does really feel like searching through a bunch of drug candidates that have no reason why they'd be effective for your targets. It's unfortunate we don't have a better approach here. And of course, as I'm sure you know, success in mouse models often translates to nothing at all in humans.<p>I'd be curious to know what sort of genomic data you're actually using for your analysis.<p>Again, though, it's great to see a startup working in this area, and I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Hi all! I'm one of the founders of Verge Genomics. We want to change the way drug discovery is done and are passionate about getting much-needed medicines into patients hands within their lifetimes. Happy to answer any questions!
I have a hard time believing that large pharma research labs are limiting themselves to single loci for a given disease phenotype. But if they are, it makes sense why YC would see value in this.