Gero

Phase A — Understand the business (Lens 1, 3 touched by new info; 2, 4 carried)

Lens 1 · Company Overview (re-run — new partner + new platform model)

Gero is a preclinical-stage, "physics-first" AI drug-discovery and -development company built on the biology of aging and age-related chronic disease, headquartered in Singapore with a San Francisco presence. Founder/CEO Peter Fedichev, PhD (theoretical physicist, University of Amsterdam) is the intellectual author of "gerophysics"; the company's lineage runs back to Russian/Belarusian origins (Fedichev's ResearchGate still lists "Gero, Moscow"; earliest capital from Belarus-linked Bulba Ventures / Yury Melnichek) re-domiciled to Singapore. (Carried from 2026-06-20 — unchanged.)

The business model, plainly — sharpened by the delta. Gero runs a computational platform (the LHM, "Large generative Model of human Health") over ~10 million curated longitudinal medical records, selected from >100 million and integrated with molecular/omics/genetic data, to identify causal "hub" targets — single mechanisms shared across multiple chronic diseases — directly in human data, then designs therapeutics against them. The platform's signature claim is separating reversible disease biology from the deeper, long-timescale (largely irreversible) processes of aging — i.e. telling pharma which biology a drug can actually move. New this refresh: the molecule-design layer now has a named, open-sourced component — ProtoBind-Diff, a structure-free sequence→small-molecule diffusion model — alongside the 2023 hybrid quantum-classical generative-chemistry work.

The model is now visibly two-track, and the delta confirms both tracks are funded:

• Partner-funded target discovery (the revenue engine). Two named pharma partners now:
• Pfizer (2023) — research collaboration on fibrotic-disease targets; upfront + discovery milestones; Pfizer owns downstream development.
• Chugai / Roche Group (2025-07-07) — joint research + exclusive worldwide license for antibody drugs against Gero-discovered age-related-disease targets; upfront + up to ~$250M milestones + royalties. This is the bigger, more concrete deal (disclosed cap, exclusivity, a defined modality/territory).
• Owned proprietary pipeline (the upside leg) — now explicit. 2026 round language: proceeds fund "preclinical development of its proprietary pipeline" and Gero "advances proprietary programs aimed at intervention in aging itself". Still no named asset, modality, indication, or IND timeline — so this is intent + funding, not a clinical program you can track.

The 2026 marketing spine is unchanged: the cross-disease property that made GLP-1 a >$50B category is the template for a single aging-mechanism drug. Net for Lens 1: the business is the same shape as yesterday, but the picture is less precarious — two pharma validations instead of one, a named open model instead of a single old demo, and explicit (if unnamed) owned-pipeline funding.

Lens 2 · Supply Chain (carried — see deep-dive-2026-06-20.md, Lens 2)

Unchanged. Dry-lab discovery company: the "supply chain" is a data-and-compute chain (upstream = large linked longitudinal human datasets, UK Biobank named, plus undisclosed EMR/exome/proteomics aggregating to the ~10M-from-100M corpus; chokepoint = data access/rights; compute incl. commercial quantum hardware, vendor undisclosed), with Pfizer and now Chugai as the named downstream off-takers of discovered targets. The hypothetical wet/manufacturing chain remains uncommitted (no owned clinical asset has reached it). One refinement worth noting: with Chugai holding antibody manufacturing/commercialization rights, the downstream antibody chain for that collaboration sits inside Roche's apparatus, not Gero's — reinforcing the "junior party owns the IP-to-discovery step, partner owns the molecule" structure. Full map: prior dossier, Lens 2.

Lens 3 · Competitive Advantages (moats) (re-run — new validation + open-source artifact shift the moat read)

Gero's edge is still methodological + credibility-by-association, not asset-based — but the delta strengthens two of the four moat legs:

• The differentiated claim (unchanged): discover targets in humans, from longitudinal real-world data, with interpretable physics-based models, attacking pharma's biggest failure mode (preclinical-to-clinical translation from mouse models).
• Moat 1 — methodology + IP (now partly verifiable). The gerophysics resilience/reversibility formalism plus ProtoBind-Diff (named, peer-reviewable preprint, open-source code). Double-edged for moat durability: open-sourcing the model demonstrates capability and recruits a community/credibility — but it also means the molecule-design layer is, by definition, not a trade secret. The durable IP, if any, is the target-discovery layer (the proprietary data integration + the resilience formalism), not the now-public ProtoBind-Diff. Durability: still medium.
• Moat 2 — data access (unchanged, still shared). Scarce but not exclusive (UK Biobank is open to many; non-UKB sources undisclosed). The ~10M-from-100M curation pipeline could itself be the asset — but provenance/consent/licensing remain undisclosed. n/a on any exclusive cohort.
• Moat 3 — validation/brand (materially stronger this refresh). The cold dossier rested this leg on one Pfizer deal + WEF Pioneer + KOL orbit. It now rests on TWO top-tier pharma collaborations — Pfizer + Chugai/Roche — the second disclosed on Chugai's own filing with $250M milestone economics and an exclusive worldwide license. Two independent sophisticated counterparties paying for the output is a meaningfully better external proof than one, and is more than any of the named longevity peers (NewLimit, Retro, Altos) can claim. It is still a credibility moat (de-risks the next raise/partner), not a barrier to entry — but it is the strongest version of this leg Gero has had.
• Bargaining power (unchanged): weak vs. customers (both Pfizer and Chugai own downstream economics; Chugai holds exclusive worldwide antibody rights — Gero is firmly the junior party) and weak vs. capital (~$34M-lifetime company). Real bargaining power still requires an owned clinical asset or exclusive data, which Gero still lacks.

Net: the moat is still a methodological wedge wrapped in borrowed credibility — but the borrowed credibility is now doubled and partly verifiable. The honest test (external validation by sophisticated counterparties) is now cleared twice, the second time on hard disclosed terms. That is a better moat than yesterday; it is still not a structural barrier.

Lens 4 · Segments (carried — see deep-dive-2026-06-20.md, Lens 4)

n/a — private, pre-product, not disclosed. No product revenue; segments.csv is header-only. The only revenue that exists is partnership income (Pfizer upfront/milestones; Chugai upfront + up to ~$250M milestones + royalties — none of the actual received amounts disclosed). Nothing to break out by product or geography (Singapore HQ + SF office is a cost-center geography, not revenue segmentation). Unchanged from prior dossier except that the potential milestone pool is now partially quantified (the Chugai $250M cap).

---

Phase B — Measure performance (swapped for +private/+clinical: Funding · Cap-table · Catalysts — all re-run; partnerships moved)

Lens 5 → Funding & valuation trajectory (re-run — round confirmed; Chugai changes the revenue-quality read)

Funding history is small, staged, and still reported inconsistently across outlets — surface the conflict, don't pick a number:

The funding-reconciliation conflict still stands (company says $34M lifetime equity; third-party trackers historically showed $13.5M / $18.2M / ~$20M) — n/a to the dollar; treat $34M as company-stated, not independently verified. Directionally: lifetime equity in the low tens of millions, ~$34M per the company, raised on a slow 2020→2023→2026 cadence.

The delta that matters here is non-equity: the Chugai deal (Jul 2025) is the first disclosed, quantified milestone economics in Gero's history — up to ~$250M plus royalties. This changes the quality of the funding story even though it doesn't change the $34M equity line: a thin-equity company that has signed a second pharma deal — with a disclosed nine-figure milestone ceiling and an exclusive worldwide license — looks far less like "a company that struggles to raise" and more like "a capital-light platform deliberately funding itself through partner economics." The 2026 equity round ($17M) then top-ups the owned preclinical pipeline.

Cap-table tell (unchanged, still the weak spot): the 2026 syndicate is founder-network + operator capital — Melnichek Investments (recurring; ex-AIMatter→Google), the EPAM Systems co-founder, an early backer of a Meta-acquired company, and senior pharma/tech operators. No tier-1 dedicated-biotech VC and no crossover fund (Fidelity / T. Rowe / Coatue) is named — the IPO-proximity tell the +private overlay hunts for is still absent. Valuation: n/a — not disclosed (a PitchBook profile exists; the figure is not in free sourcing).

Burn signal (re-read): ~$17M raised in 2026, six years after founding, after landing the Chugai deal in 2025 — consistent with deliberately low burn + partner-funded model. The bear flip (Lens 13) is now weaker than yesterday: the slow cadence reads less like "can't raise" and more like "doesn't need to raise much because partners fund the discovery work," now that a second, larger, disclosed deal exists.

Lens 6 → Founder & narrative signal (carried with one update — see deep-dive-2026-06-20.md, Lens 6)

Carried, lightly updated. No earnings calls exist; the tone signal is founder communications — Fedichev as the rigorous skeptic in a hype-soaked field (publicly argues aging is partly thermodynamically irreversible, ~150-yr ceiling, won a debate vs. Aubrey de Grey on the pessimistic view). The 2023→2026 commercial repositioning (moonshot → fundable disease-modifying partnerships) is now validated by behavior, not just messaging: the Chugai deal is exactly that repositioning executed — a pharma paying for age-related-disease targets, framed by Fedichev's own X post as a "potential multi-billion-$ deal". One tension to flag (Lens 9/12): the "multi-billion-$" / GLP-1-scale narration sits awkwardly against his own science (aging partly irreversible, 15 yrs max from rejuvenation) and against the actual Chugai cap ($250M milestones, if hit). Sentiment read otherwise unchanged. Full version: prior dossier, Lens 6.

Lens 7 → Cap table, comps & mechanism peers (re-run — comps unchanged; Gero's standing within them improves)

Cap-table quality (the +private tell) — unchanged and still the soft spot: founder-network/operator capital, no tier-1 biotech VC, no strategic-pharma equity, no crossover fund. On IPO-readiness this remains an early, non-institutional cap table — a markdown vs. Altos (Bezos/Milner), Retro (Altman), NewLimit (Armstrong). However, Gero now carries something most of those richer peers don't: two revenue-generating pharma partnerships, one with disclosed $250M milestone economics. Validation ≠ valuation, but it changes where Gero sits on the de-risking axis even as it lags on the capitalization axis.

Comps — AI-longevity / aging drug-discovery cohort (all ``, unchanged set; "Read vs. Gero" updated for the delta):

P/E, EV/Sales, ROE, dividend yield: n/a — Gero is private and pre-revenue; no multiples exist. Sector scale (carried): across 2022–2026 longevity funding, AI-drug-discovery captured only ~$480M (~6%) vs. reprogramming/epigenetics ~$4.7B (62%); Gero is named among the small players in the smallest slice. Gero is still a minnow inside the least-funded longevity sub-sector — but the best-partnered minnow in it.

Lens 8 → Funding & validation catalysts (re-run — two catalysts added that the cold run missed)

No stock exists; the events that move Gero's narrative/value, updated:

• Chugai / Roche joint research + license deal (2025-07-07) — NEW to the dossier; now the single biggest external de-risking event. A Roche-group pharma paid upfront + up to ~$250M milestones + royalties for exclusive worldwide antibody rights to Gero-discovered age-related targets. Supersedes Pfizer as the top validation catalyst (bigger, disclosed, exclusive).
• Pfizer fibrosis collaboration (2023) — the first pharma de-risking event; still material.
• ProtoBind-Diff launch (2025-06-25) — NEW to the dossier. Named, open-source, structure-free sequence→molecule model; a capability/credibility catalyst and a falsifiable one (open code/preprint).
• WEF 2026 Technology Pioneer (2026-06-10) — credibility/visibility catalyst.
• $17M / $34M equity round (2026-06-17) — survival + owned-pipeline-funding catalyst.
• 2021 Nature Communications DOSI/loss-of-resilience paper — the scientific flagship.

Pattern (updated): Gero's value still inflects on publications, platform releases, and partner/credibility milestones rather than clinical data (it has none). But the partner leg is now two deals deep, and one platform release (ProtoBind-Diff) is independently verifiable. The character-changing day is still the same: a partner advances a Gero target into the clinic, or Gero names its own IND-track asset.

---

Phase C — Judge people & books (Lens 9 touched; Lens 10 carried)

Lens 9 · Management (re-run — Chugai validates the repositioning; CBO surfaces)

• Peter Fedichev (Co-founder & CEO). Theoretical physicist (PhD, Amsterdam), author of "gerophysics," lead author on the 2021 Nature Communications resilience paper, co-editor of an npj Aging collection, won a public debate vs. Aubrey de Grey. Archetype: scientist-founder / physicist-evangelist — deep domain authority. Capital-allocation read (updated): the cold dossier read the frugality (~$34M, six years, no clinical asset) as possibly an inability to build a drug company. The Chugai deal revises that upward: closing a second pharma collaboration with a disclosed nine-figure milestone structure and an exclusive worldwide license is a real commercial-execution data point, not just science output. He can demonstrably structure and close pharma deals, which is most of what a discovery-platform CEO must do. The drug-company-operator question (can he run an owned clinical program?) is still unproven — there is no named owned asset to judge it on. Red flag (mild, unchanged): his own pessimist science (aging partly irreversible, ~15-yr ceiling) sits awkwardly against the "multi-billion-$ / GLP-1-scale" framing of the Chugai/round narration.
• Alex Kadet (CBO). Surfaces in the Chugai release as the business-development voice ("Together, we aim to develop first-in-class therapeutics…") — relevant because two pharma deals now have a named dealmaker behind them, adding a BD operating layer to the founder-scientist.
• Scientific orbit / governance (unchanged): Brian Kennedy, PhD (independent director) and Jan Gruber, PhD (NUS) anchor scientific credibility; the EPAM Systems co-founder entered as 2026 investor (scaled-software pedigree).
• Founding capital (unchanged): Yury Melnichek (Bulba/Melnichek Investments; MSQRD/AIMatter) — committed but non-biotech-specialist capital since 2020.

Net (revised): credible scientific leadership and SAB, now paired with demonstrated pharma-BD execution (two deals) — but still-unproven owned-drug-development capability and a non-institutional board. The team can clearly do science and pharma partnerships (now proven twice); whether it can do its own drugs and an exit is still unproven.

Lens 10 · Forensic Red Flags (carried — see deep-dive-2026-06-20.md, Lens 10; one item softened)

No audited financials exist (private, no SEC filings; regulatory/regulatory-findings.md confirms no CIK → no EDGAR/LR/AAER search possible ). Standard forensics N/A; the flags are structural/disclosure-based, all /:

• Funding-figure inconsistency (unchanged). $34M company-stated vs. tracker figures ($13.5M/$18.2M/~$20M) — unreconciled; treat $34M as company-stated.
• Corpus claim — partially de-risked this refresh. "~10M curated from >100M records" is now stated in a counterparty (Chugai) disclosure, not gero.ai alone — modestly better provenance, though data consent/licensing/jurisdiction remain undisclosed (the asset's legal basis is still opaque).
• Owned-pipeline opacity (softened but live). Gero now claims a proprietary preclinical pipeline, but still names no asset, target, modality or IND date — so internal progress remains unfalsifiable from outside (unlike Insilico's named molecules / ClinicalTrials.gov entries). Discount confidence; this is opacity, not fraud.
• Origin/jurisdiction (unchanged). Russian/Belarusian origins re-presented as Singapore/SF — relevant for data-jurisdiction, sanctions-adjacency, and pharma-partner diligence; that two major pharmas (Pfizer, Chugai/Roche) cleared their own diligence is a mild positive signal on this axis.

Regulatory findings (required sub-section) — carried, re-verified:

• SEC (EDGAR LR / AAER): none possible — no CIK, not a US filer.
• Non-SEC enforcement (web): the search "Gero" (FTC OR DOJ OR FDA OR CFPB OR "consent decree" OR settlement OR fine OR penalty) enforcement surfaced no material enforcement action against Gero (the biotech) as of 2026-06-21 (generic "gero-" hits unrelated).
• 10-K Item 3 (Legal Proceedings): n/a — private, no 10-K exists.
• Conclusion: No material regulatory or legal findings — verified via the no-CIK SEC limitation, web enforcement search, and the absence of any filing, as of 2026-06-21. Caveat: a private company's litigation/regulatory exposure is not publicly observable; absence of findings ≠ absence of issues.

---

Phase D — Project & stress-test (Lens 11/12/13 re-run; Lens 14 carried + amended)

Lens 11 → IPO-readiness & path-to-tradeable (re-run — Chugai nudges readiness up slightly)

No EPS projection is possible (pre-revenue, private). The question: how far is Gero from tradeable, and what unlocks it?

• Current stage (revised): preclinical, platform-monetization — now with two pharma partners (Pfizer + Chugai/Roche), a disclosed ~$250M milestone ceiling on one, an open-source model, and an explicit-but-unnamed owned pipeline; ~$34M lifetime equity. On a 0–5 IPO-readiness scale (0 = lab, 5 = S-1 imminent), Gero moves to ~1.5 (was ~1): two validations and a named platform artifact raise the floor, but no clinical asset and no institutional/crossover cap table keep it well short of 2.
• Milestones that unlock an S-1 (in value order, updated):

1. A Gero-discovered target enters the clinic (via Pfizer or Chugai) — converts the platform from "promising" to "validated the only way pharma respects." Highest value; two partners can now trigger it, but both control timing.
2. Gero names/advances its OWN asset to IND — the biggest change to the equity story; turns fee-for-service into a value-accreting drug company. Now funded in intent (2026 round) but still no named asset.
3. A tier-1 biotech VC / crossover-fund round at a priced step-up — the IPO-on-roadmap tell. Still absent.
4. A third marquee pharma partnership — would make the platform look serially repeatable, not a two-off.

• Estimated public-market window: still not near. No clinical asset + non-institutional cap table → a direct IPO is multiple financings away. The more probable path to tradeable remains M&A (pharma acqui-hire of the platform/team) or a reverse-merger, not a marquee IPO. The Chugai deal arguably makes acquisition more likely (a Roche-group relationship is a natural M&A on-ramp). Near-term liquidity for an outside holder = a priced up-round or an M&A bid, not a listing.

Brier forecast (the binary that matters for a +private/+clinical name): By end-2027, a Gero-discovered target will be confirmed advanced into clinical (Phase 1) development by a partner (Pfizer OR Chugai) OR Gero will name its own IND-track asset. p ≈ 0.38. (No forecast.ts create per --watchlist rules — logged narratively only.)

Lens 12 · Bull vs Bear (re-run — bull strengthens, bear #1 substantially weakened)

Bull case (stronger this refresh). Gero attacks pharma's deepest failure — targets that don't translate from mice to humans — with a differentiated in-human, physics-interpretable discovery method, and it now has the validation that matters in this field, twice: two top-tier pharmas (Pfizer and Chugai/Roche) paid for its output, the second on disclosed terms (upfront + up to ~$250M milestones + royalties) with an exclusive worldwide license. It does this on a shoestring (~$34M lifetime equity) — so the external-validation-per-dollar ratio is the best in the cohort, and any partner-advanced clinical target re-rates a thin-capital platform violently. The macro tailwind is unchanged and large (pharma hunting cross-disease GLP-1-style mechanisms, a >$50B template). New supporting evidence: an open-sourced, falsifiable platform artifact (ProtoBind-Diff) answers the "is the tech real or vaporware?" question more credibly than a slide deck. Contrarian view the market is refusing to see: the unsexy disease-modifying lane (fibrosis with Pfizer, antibody targets with Chugai), not the moonshot, is where this becomes fundable and acquirable — and Gero is now two pharma deals into that lane while the better-capitalized reprogramming peers (Altos, NewLimit, Retro) have zero disclosed pharma partners.

Bear case (2–3 ways it permanently impairs — #1 materially weaker now).

1. Junior-partner trap (weakened, not gone). Gero still discovers; Pfizer and Chugai develop and own the downstream (Chugai holds exclusive worldwide antibody rights). The ceiling on the partnered programs is milestone + royalty income, not equity-accreting asset value — and Gero still lacks the capital to build a large owned clinical program. But the cold-dossier framing ("total concentration on one undisclosed Pfizer deal") is no longer true: two partners, one with disclosed nine-figure economics, plus a (funded, unnamed) owned pipeline. The trap is now "mostly a discovery shop," not "only a discovery shop."
2. No FDA pathway for the moonshot (unchanged). Aging is not an FDA indication (even TAME/metformin exists only to negotiate a surrogate-endpoint path, under-funded). The >$50B GLP-1 analogy is seductive but those drugs were approved for diabetes/obesity; Gero's approvable shots are ordinary disease indications — where Chugai (antibodies) and Pfizer (fibrosis) carry the clinical capability, not Gero. The owned-pipeline upside depends on Gero building clinical muscle it has not yet shown.
3. Capital starvation vs. a richer field (unchanged, but partner-mitigated). Rivals carry $130M–$5B; Gero carries ~$34M equity. Capital is a moat in biotech. Gero's mitigant is that partners fund the discovery work (Chugai's milestones can underwrite a lot of platform value) — but the owned pipeline still competes for scarce internal dollars, and Gero could be out-resourced on its own programs even if the science is right.

Pre-mortem (18 months out, thesis broke): It's late 2027. Neither the Pfizer nor the Chugai collaboration has advanced a target into the clinic (the default outcome for most discovery deals); milestone income stays minimal; the owned "proprietary pipeline" never produced a named IND asset; the $34M + small milestones burned down into a flat/down insider extension (no institutional lead). Gero is still preclinical, still platform-only, narrative decayed from "WEF Pioneer + Roche deal" to "good science, two stalled partnerships, no asset." The most dangerous single fact: Insilico (or similar) put an AI-discovered drug through a successful late-stage trial in one of Gero's target indications, proving the category while Gero's specific programs sat idle.

Are multiples too high? n/a — no public multiple. The implied private narrative ("multi-billion-$" / GLP-1-scale) is still well ahead of the substance (preclinical, two partner deals at ≤$250M potential, thin equity, no owned asset). Pay for the platform-validation milestone (now doubly evidenced), not the moonshot.

Lens 13 · Devil's Advocate (short-seller) (re-run — the strongest short points are now partly answered)

Dismantling the bull case — and noting where the delta blunts the knife:

• Revenue concentration — no longer "total." The cold short thesis ("one partner, Pfizer, one undisclosed deal") is now wrong: two pharma partners (Pfizer fibrosis + Chugai/Roche antibodies, the latter disclosed at ≤$250M milestones, exclusive worldwide). The residual short point: both are discovery/license deals where the partner owns development — so if neither advances a target (the base-rate outcome), the milestone income that justifies the narrative never lands. Concentration risk shifted from "one counterparty" to "two counterparties who both control whether milestones ever trigger."
• The moat may still be a method, not a barrier — and Gero just open-sourced part of it. ProtoBind-Diff is now public code, which demonstrates capability but also confirms the molecule-design layer is not a trade secret. The durable IP must live in the target-discovery / data layer, whose exclusivity (proprietary cohorts? issued blocking patents generating revenue?) is still n/a.
• Most dangerous competitor bulls underestimate: Insilico Medicine — unchanged. Same "AI finds the drug" thesis, years ahead, orders of magnitude better capitalized, with a drug (Rentosertib) through positive Phase IIa in IPF. Insilico has done in the clinic what Gero has only partnered to attempt.
• Capital-allocation / incentive flags (partly answered). The non-institutional cap table persists (no biotech VC, no crossover) — but the cold read that the slow cadence = "struggles to raise" is weaker now: a company that landed a Roche-group deal in 2025 before topping up equity in 2026 looks capital-light-by-design, not capital-starved-by-failure. The real residual flag: why has no tier-1 biotech investor led a priced round despite two pharma validations? Either they passed on the science, or Gero prefers operator/founder capital — n/a on which.
• Assumptions that must hold (updated): (a) the in-human targets are genuinely better and Pfizer/Chugai keep paying / advancing; (b) at least one of two partners advances a target to the clinic (better odds than one partner, still partner-controlled); (c) Gero raises real institutional capital or is acquired (a Roche-group relationship makes M&A more plausible) before cash runs down. Break all three and the story stalls — but breaking all three is now less likely than breaking the single Pfizer dependency was.
• If partnership traction disappoints by 20–30%: still no floor — no product revenue, no owned asset, no public mark. The value is optionality; if it stops compounding, it decays toward acqui-hire value (though a live Roche relationship arguably raises the acqui-hire floor).
• Single scenario that permanently impairs (revised): both the Pfizer and Chugai collaborations end with nothing advanced AND the owned pipeline never names an IND asset within ~24 months — Gero becomes "good science, two stalled deals, no buyer," diluting through insider extensions. Plausibility: moderate (down from moderate-to-high — it now takes two partner failures plus an owned-pipeline failure, not one).

Lens 14 · Management Questions (carried + amended — see deep-dive-2026-06-20.md, Lens 14; Chugai/ProtoBind questions added, ordered by information value)

1. Chugai (Jul 2025): how many targets are in scope, and has any been validated/optioned/advanced by Chugai yet — or is it still at the research stage? (Now the single most thesis-determining fact, alongside Pfizer.)
2. Pfizer (2023): is the collaboration still active and funded, and has any target been advanced into formal preclinical/clinical development?
3. Do you have an owned, named IND-track asset — target, modality, timeline — or is the proprietary "pipeline" still pre-named? What is the first program you'd take into the clinic yourself, and what would it cost?
4. What was the exact composition of the $34M lifetime equity (equity vs. grants vs. milestones), and why do trackers report $13.5M–$20M? Reconcile it. Separately: how much upfront did Chugai actually pay?
5. The 2026 round had no tier-1 biotech VC and no crossover fund — by choice, or did they pass? What did the diligence that passed conclude?
6. What is your current cash runway in months (equity + received milestones), and what milestone gates the next raise?
7. ProtoBind-Diff is open-source — what then is the exclusive, defensible IP: proprietary cohorts, issued blocking patents, or the target-discovery layer? What can't a competitor replicate?
8. Which datasets beyond UK Biobank train the LHM, and what are the consent, licensing, and jurisdiction terms for the ~10M-from-100M corpus (the asset)?
9. Insilico has an AI-discovered drug through positive Phase IIa in fibrosis — your Pfizer lane. Why are you not years behind, and what do you do that they can't?
10. For platform-named indications (hypercholesterolemia, osteoporosis, T2D) and the Chugai antibody targets, what is the approvable indication and endpoint — given aging is not an FDA indication?
11. How do you reconcile your own science (aging partly irreversible, ~15 yrs max, ~150-yr ceiling) with the "multi-billion-$ / GLP-1-scale" framing of the Chugai deal and the round?
12. What is the most likely liquidity path — IPO, M&A (a Roche-group acquisition?), or reverse-merger — and on what timeline?
13. What is your headcount and wet-lab capability — are you purely dry-lab, and how do you experimentally validate computational targets without it?
14. Given Russian/Belarusian origins and capital, how did you clear data-jurisdiction / sanctions-adjacency / pharma-diligence for the Pfizer and Chugai deals — and does it constrain future data or partners?
15. Beyond Pfizer and Chugai, what is the realistic cadence of new pharma partnerships, and at what point does partner concentration stop being the core risk?

---