When a group of scientists and biotech veterans started talking about changing how medicines work, they didn’t set out to build yet another drug company. They wanted to solve a problem that had been nagging at them for years: traditional medicines often only block disease‑causing proteins or slow them down. What if you could completely remove those proteins? What if you could just make them go away?
That idea grew into EpiBiologics, a biotech company based in San Mateo, California. The company made headlines in early 2026 by raising $107 million in series B funding from big‑name investors like GV, which used to be called Google Ventures, and Johnson & Johnson’s venture capital arm. This cash is meant to help the company move its first experimental therapy into human testing and grow its pipeline of similar medicines.
The Simple But Big Idea Behind the Science
EpiBiologics didn’t start with a business plan. It started with science. The company’s core technology, called EpiTACs, comes from work done in the lab of Dr Jim Wells, a biologist at the University of California, San Francisco. Wells and his team were thinking about proteins that sit outside cells or on the cell surface and how to remove them in a way that mimics the body’s own cleanup processes. That research was licensed from the university and became the foundation of EpiBiologics.
Most targeted therapies try to block a protein’s function, like stopping a key from turning a lock. EpiTACs do something different: they tag the protein and send it into the cell’s natural garbage disposal system so it gets broken down and disappears. This means the therapy doesn’t just slow disease; it has the potential to shut it down more completely.
Also Read: AI Startup Aivar Raises $4.6M to Help Companies Actually Use AI in the Real World
Who Is Behind the Company
EpiBiologics’ leadership reads like a who’s who of biotech experience mixed with deep science. Ann Lee‑Karlon leads the company as its CEO and president. She didn’t come out of nowhere. Before joining EpiBiologics in 2023, she worked in leadership roles at big industry names, including Genentech and Altos Labs, and has a reputation for pushing complex biotechnologies forward. Dr. Shyra Gardai, the Chief Scientific Officer, has spent decades in scientific discovery and drug development, including key work in antibody research. Dr Wells remains the scientific founder whose lab’s discoveries made the company possible. The executive team also includes experienced leaders in clinical development and finance, all helping to steer the company from idea to reality. In many ways, this blend of seasoned biotech operators and deep science talent is exactly what investors like to see. It turns a cool idea on paper into something that could actually become a medicine people take.
What EpiBiologics Is Trying to Build
The company’s lead program, EPI‑326, targets a protein called EGFR, which plays a big role in cancers such as non‑small cell lung cancer and head and neck cancers. EGFR has been a target of cancer drugs for years, but it’s tough to stop completely without harming healthy cells. EPI‑326 aims to solve that by pulling the problem protein out of the cell surface entirely and letting the cell dispose of it. Early lab tests show this can reduce tumor growth while sparing healthy tissue. That’s something researchers are excited about because it could mean better results for patients who have already tried other treatments without success. The company plans to start first‑in‑human clinical trials in early 2026, a milestone that often separates hopeful science from real medicine.
But EPI‑326 isn’t the only idea they are chasing. The EpiTAC platform has already shown promise against other targets in preclinical studies, including proteins implicated in different tumor types. Some of this research was shared at scientific meetings where EpiBiologics presented data showing their degraders working in models of difficult‑to‑treat cancers.
How the Company Grew
EpiBiologics didn’t start with this much fanfare. Back in 2022, when the company was first formed, it raised about $50 million in a Series A round to get off the ground. That early funding helped the team build out its EpiTAC technology and expand the scientific team. Over time, the Series A grew with extensions that brought in more support from investors who wanted to see the science move forward.
Fast forward to 2026, and the company has now secured a much larger cash infusion. What was once a quiet startup is now a biotech catching attention in science and investment communities because it is pushing into protein degradation, a field that many researchers believe may be one of the next big frontiers in drug discovery.
Why People Are Paying Attention
Protein degradation itself is not entirely new, but most early work focused on targets inside cells. EpiBiologics is special because its technology tackles the parts of the protein universe that sit outside the cell or on the cell’s surface. That’s important because many disease drivers live in that outer environment, and until recently they were considered hard or impossible to drug. By building what the company calls an “atlas” of more than 270 degradation receptors, EpiBiologics aims to tailor therapies that act on specific tissues without widespread side effects.
Investors are betting that this combination of smart science and practical leadership will pay off. In addition to backing from GV and Johnson & Johnson, the latest round included several other biotech investors who are now part of the company’s board and strategy discussions.
The Path Forward
For now, the focus is on getting EPI‑326 into patients, watching how it behaves in real human biology, and learning whether this new way of treating disease is as powerful as the lab data suggests. If it works, it could open up a whole new class of medicines for cancer and potentially beyond.
But even with all the optimism, the team at EpiBiologics knows that real medicine is complicated. Turning scientific breakthroughs into safe and effective treatments takes time, patience, and a lot of testing. What matters to them most is staying true to their mission: creating therapies that can make a real difference in people’s lives, not just in science journals. In that way, EpiBiologics is still exactly what it set out to be: a group of people asking a simple question about how to do better and refusing to stop until they find an answer.
Also Read: Kazam: Quietly Powering India’s Electric Vehicle Shift
