Deep Science Ventures is creating a future in which both humans and the planet can thrive. We use our unique venture creation process to create, spin-out and invest into science companies, combining available scientific knowledge and founder-type scientists into high-impact ventures. We operate in 4 sectors: Pharmaceuticals, Climate, Agriculture and Computation, tackling the challenges defining those areas by taking a first principles approach and partnering with leading institutions.
Driven by mutual conviction in the huge unmet medical need in fibrotic diseases, DSV has partnered with General Inception to accelerate the development of novel therapeutics, jointly building a new venture solely dedicated to anti-fibrotic therapies. To maximise impact and exploit synergies across both organisations, we are forging a new venture creation model which combines DSV’s innovative first-principles venture creation methodology with General Inception’s deep domain expertise, network and portfolio - leveraging the best of both.
To learn more about the partnership, please see our Press Release, and to learn more about General Inception
We are looking for future Founders: entrepreneurially-minded individuals with deep technical and commercial domain expertise, who are eager to solve urgent unmet challenges through venture building. This role offers a unique opportunity to work at the forefront of fibrosis drug development, leading a company solving challenges in immune resolution and myeloid reprogramming to reverse disease.
You will join DSV’s venture creation programme as a Founder-in-Residence and work closely with the DSV and GI team to spin out the new company. During the programme you will refine, improve and complement existing scoping work on:
- Fundraising strategy & pitching
- Clinical strategy & positioning
- Commercial neglect (IP strategy, differentiation, competition)
- Value proposition (market, value capture, techno-economics)
- Optimising company strategy for the most rapid and derisked path to Series A (within 18-24 months from launch)
Preparation for Investment Committee will involve fulfilling any outstanding investment criteria, recruiting advisory and co-founding team members, and parallel fundraising for additional expansion funds.
Assuming success at both respective Investment Committees, you will receive pre-seed investment from DSV and GI, and spinout the company in Q4 2025. You and your co-founders will own a significant stake in the business and continue receiving support post-spinout.
Fibrosis underlies a staggering proportion of human diseases, accounting for 18% of all global deaths (35% including solid tumours), with increasing prevalence worldwide, and consistent market growth across almost all indications. Yet there are still only two FDA-approved anti-fibrotic drugs – marketed for lung fibrosis alone – neither of which are able to meaningfully halt disease, let alone reverse it.
The unmet medical need is therefore enormous. But competition in the development pipeline is increasingly fierce for liver and lung fibrosis, and many clinical approaches have historically proven to be intractable at reversing disease, teaching us valuable biological lessons that must be incorporated for the next generation of therapeutics. To reverse disease, we must directly or indirectly achieve multiple biological outcomes – manipulating pathogenic myofibroblasts, resolving pro-fibrotic inflammation, regenerating healthy epithelia & endothelia, degrading existing ECM deposits, and ideally neutralising (reactivity to) any upstream triggers. We believe we have identified approaches that may be able to address many if not all of these outcomes, by focussing on pro-resolution mechanisms and immune reprogramming.
Our ambition is to create impactful new medicines that have (i) transformative mono-therapeutic efficacy, (ii) applicability across multiple fibrotic diseases (beyond the lung), (iii) complementary yet distinct mechanism of action compared to standard-of-care medicines (to ensure combinability with future clinical regimens), and (iv) conveniently and/or infrequently administered (to ensure patient convenience and low burden on healthcare systems).
To this end, we are pursuing a multi-strategy portfolio of approaches within immune resolution and myeloid reprogramming that balance ambition, derisking, speed, and optionality, while maintaining focus on key biology areas where we can develop deep expertise and know-how. Our existing strategy involves generation of proprietary assets/IP whilst derisking multiple in-licensing opportunities in parallel that could substantially accelerate the company’s trajectory.
This will require a talented and experienced leader with commercial knowhow to joining the Founding team.
We believe now is the time to turn this vision into a reality. Will you join us to lead the effort?
We are looking for an exceptional individual with the following:
Essential Values
- You are highly motivated by unsolved challenges in fibrotic disease, and driven to challenge the status quo of how we treat these underserved patients.
- You are impact driven, take the initiative, make things happen, and think from a first principles perspective to figure out what’s really needed.
- You have clear entrepreneurial spirit and mindset, demonstrated through impactful innovation, and an ability to work in ambiguous, unstructured but fast-paced, demanding and pressurised environments.
- Collaborative nature, with the ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams.
Essential experience (must-have)
- You have translational R&D experience in inflammatory, autoimmune or fibrotic disease.
Analogous experience in similar diseases/cells/tissues/mechanisms such as fibroblast-targeting in solid tumours is also acceptable. You have 15+ years drug development experience in pharma/biotech and/or BD/corporate development experience.
We are also open to life science VC investors with strong operational drug development experience.
You have deep commercial & strategic expertise in therapeutic development, demonstrated through successful; (a) VC fundraising (ideally at Series A or Seed), OR, (b) execution of deals (licensing, partnering, collaborations) or transactions (M&A, IPO).
A strong existing network of investor & pharma BD/CVC relationships is highly preferred.
Strong track record of building and leading successful teams, ideally with experience integrating in-house operations with outsourced relationships (CROs and/or academic collaborators).
Preferred experience (nice-to-have)
- Previous CEO experience (in biotech)
- Previous Founder experience (in biotech)
- Technical or clinical development experience in protein therapeutics and/or bispecific antibodies
- Technical or clinical development experience in lung, kidney, liver, or heart fibrosis.
- Deep technical experience in fibrotic disease biology
- Track record of successful non-dilutive (grant) fundraising
- Track record of high quality publications or thought leadership in the field