Faeth Therapeutics
Faeth is treating cancer through food's effect on metabolism.
Summary
Faeth is cancer therapeutic startup building a platform to treat cancer through food's effect on metabolism. The premise of the company is that cancer therapeutics have traditionally been incremental with few major improvements in the ways we approach treatments, despite there being additional dimensions to human biology that can be leveraged. More specifically, Faeth is developing dietary approaches to treating cancers, often in conjunction with established therapeutics (e.g. drugs).
The company was started by high-profile oncologists and cancer biologists from some of the best institutes in the world (Cornell, Columbia, Cambridge, Crick Institute, and Sloan Kettering) including Lew Cantley, whose name has appeared on potential Nobel Prize lists. Over the last decade, these scientists discovered that due to differences in the metabolic behavior of many cancers, nutritional modifications such as nonessential amino acid starvation can dramatically impact or even suppress cancer proliferation with little to no effects on normal cells. A number of these papers have been published in high-profile journals like Nature and Science.
Why We Invested
- Exceptional Team: Anand is one of the best storytellers we've met and the scientific pedigree speaks for itself.
- Faeth has the potential to be a category defining company and a trailblazer in the food as medicine approach to treating cancer.
- Faeth has a diversified portfolio of therapeutics with promising early results - there is platform potential.
Contact Faeth Therapeutics
Team
Anand Parikh
CEO/Cofounder
Anand is a corporate lawyer by training with previous healthcare startup experience. In 2015 he joioned Virta Health (raised $373m), a therapeutics company that uses nutrition to treat type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases without the use of medications and surgery. He started out as Chief of Staff and then became Head of Finance, General Counsel & Corporate Strategy. Anand holds a BA in Political Science and Biology from the University of Michigan and a JD from NYU School of Law.
Oliver Maddocks
Head of Research/Cofounder
Oliver is a Cancer Research UK Research Fellow and Group Leader at the University of Glasgow Institute of Cancer Sciences. In his lab Oliver studies cancer metabolism. While doing his postdoc at Karen Vousden's lab (also a cofounder), Oliver worked on amino acid starvation as a therapeutic avenue to treat cancer. His research, which was published in Nature in 2013, set in motion the field of cancer treatment through diets and is at the core of Faeth's strategy. Oliver holds a Master of Pharmacy from Cardiff University, and a PhD in Cancer Molecular Biology from the University of Edinburgh.