Founder in Residence, Reversing fibrosis (myeloid targeting / protein engineer)

ABOUT DSV

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.

OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH GENERAL INCEPTION

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

ABOUT THE ROLE

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, solving challenges in protein engineering 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:

• Prioritised therapeutic Approaches
• Clinical positioning
• Experimental PoC work plan & execution strategy
• Commercial neglect (IP strategy, differentiation, competition)
• Value proposition (market, value capture, techno-economics)
• Optimising for the most rapid and derisked path to Series A (less than 18-24 months from launch)

Preparation for investment decision committee will involve fulfilling any outstanding investment criteria, recruiting advisory and co-founding team members, and 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 early Q4 2025. You and your co-founders will own the majority stake in the business and continue receiving support post-spinout.

THE OPPORTUNITY

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 want to pursue a multi-strategy portfolio of approaches that balance ambition, derisking, speed, and optionality, while maintaining focus on key biology areas where we can develop deep expertise and know-how. This will require a talented  expert in protein engineering and/or myeloid reprogramming to join the Founding team.

We believe now is the time to turn this vision into a reality. Will you join us to lead the effort?

Requirements

WHO SHOULD APPLY

We are looking for an exceptional individual with the following:

Essential (must-have) 

• You have translational research experience in inflammatory/fibrotic disease at minimum PhD level.
• We are open to a wide range of profiles: from serial founders to first-time entrepreneurs, pharma experts, senior/principal scientists, innovative translational academics, and more.
• You have deep technical expertise in either: (1) myeloid cell biology, myeloid  reprogramming mechanisms, therapeutic myeloid targeting, AND/OR, (2) protein engineering, stabilisation & ligand binding modification, biologics development, protein miniaturisation for oral delivery, or generative AI protein design.
• You have 10+ years industry experience in pharma, biotech, academic drug discovery, or life sciences roles in VC,  BD, and/or strategy consulting.
• You are highly motivated by unsolved challenges in fibrotic disease, and driven to challenge the status quo of how we treat them.
• You are impact driven, take the initiative, make things happen, and can 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.

Preferred (nice-to-have) 

• Previous founder experience
• Deep technical domain experience in fibrotic disease biology and/or clinical development
• First-hand experience with pre-clinical fibrosis models, primary human in vitro systems, and familiarity with gold standard methods/assays/readouts.
• Experience effectively integrating bioinformatics platforms into drug development projects
• Track record of high quality publications or thought leadership in the field
• Experience of building and leading teams
• Track record of successful fundraising (dilutive or non-dilutive)

Benefits

OUR OFFER

By joining DSV, you’ll be joining a team of operators who have founded companies and led translation of science at some of the most respected universities, charities, funds and government agencies. 2/3 of the team have founded or led a company at C-suite and 65% have a PhD. Our team dedicate several hours every week to each Founder or founding team to provide tailored guidance, resources and feedback covering every aspect of what it takes to successfully launch a new venture from both the tech and commercial perspectives:

• We provide optimised, purpose-built, proprietary tools, resources and processes to help create high-impact ventures from scratch, using our venture creation methodology.
• General Inception’s extensive network (investors, clinicians, academics), technical domain expertise, and wide-ranging portfolio company capabilities across tools, platforms, diagnostics and therapeutics.
• DSV’s network of Partners, Advisors, Community and Pharma Scientific Advisory Board members – including leaders of therapeutics VCs, Pharma BD execs, C-suite operators at leading biotech companies, venture builders, and CDMOs, from whom you will receive detailed feedback.
• We jointly provide £250k investment governed by our Investment Committee to incorporate the new venture and develop early proof-of-concept data that’s needed to attract high profile non-venture studio VCs. This funding is also key to get grant funding, which most often needs to be matched with private investment.
• We provide guaranteed income of £4,166 per month paid to each Founder as a consultancy fee until the company is launched and the pre-seed investment is secured.
• You and your co-founder(s) will own a significant equity stake in the company.
• We provide continuous support post spin-out, including fundraising, commercial partnerships, recruitment and team-building (amongst other things). 
• There are dozens of Founders currently at DSV across sectors working collaboratively and supporting one another - a unique resource to draw on.