Today, we are announcing a new pre-seed venture fund – Altitude Lab Fund – to support early-stage biotech startups facing the loss of SBIR grants due to recent federal funding policy shifts which have left many biotech founders in limbo. I wrote about why these funds are so critical – and why this moment represents a call to action in the industry – in an op-ed for @statnews. Namely, NIH and SBIR funding led to the formation of leading biotechs and breakthroughs – from monoclonal antibody therapies, to the COVID-19 vaccine, to advances in CRISPR technology, AIDS treatments, and the HPV vaccine. @RecursionPharma benefited from these funds, too – both to support the early research that led to our founding – and, after it was founded, receiving $3.5 million in NIH Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grants, which helped us get off the ground. We’ve since raised more than 400 times our SBIR funding in private investment to advance our platform and improve the way drugs are discovered. Today, we are a $4 billion publicly-traded company with 8 therapeutics in clinical trials, more than 10 in advanced discovery, and R&D partnerships with leading pharmas. And we believe that there are many other worthwhile biotech companies that need that same support to lead to the next great American medical breakthrough – and that we as an industry need to step up. The Altitude Lab Fund – anchored by myself and biotech entrepreneur @dave_bearss – will provide: ● $100,000–$250,000 in pre-seed investment capital ● 12 months of lab and office space ● Admission to the competitive accelerator program run by our incubator, Altitude Lab in Salt Lake City, which includes exclusive mentorship and access to top tier national funds. Learn more about the fund: ir.recursion.com/news-releas… Read my op-ed: statnews.com/2025/02/19/nih-… Check-out the story in Tech-Crunch: techcrunch.com/2025/02/19/ni… CEO of a company caught in the SBIR-funding turmoil with a great impact score and interested in the Altitude Lab Fund? altitudelab.org/altitude-lab…