A start­up led by a group of Bay Area grad stu­dents says it’s build­ing a plat­form that har­ness­es the “search en­gine” func­tion of CRISPR, win­ning $23 mil­lion in back­ing from a slew of high pro­file in­vestors Tues­day.

The com­pa­ny, called Mam­moth Bio­sciences, was co-found­ed by CRISPR leg­end Jen­nifer Doud­na — one of the most fa­mous sci­en­tif­ic pi­o­neers be­hind CRISPR/Cas9 gene edit­ing tech. The oth­er founders in­clude the 29-year-old CEO Trevor Mar­tin, a Stan­ford PhD, and CTO Ash­ley Tehranchi, al­so out of Stan­ford. The duo launched the com­pa­ny with the help of two stu­dents in Doud­na’s lab: Jan­ice Chen and Lu­cas Har­ring­ton, who will lead sci­en­tif­ic re­search. Doud­na heads up the sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board.

Tim Cook

Op­er­at­ing un­der stealth mode un­til re­cent­ly, Mam­moth first stepped out this April with news that it planned to cre­ate a plat­form for di­ag­nos­tics. With tech in-li­censed from Berke­ley, the com­pa­ny wants to ap­ply CRISPR tech to new fron­tiers.

While many de­scribe CRISPR as the “scis­sors” of gene edit­ing, cut­ting DNA and re­plac­ing bits of ge­net­ic ma­te­r­i­al where need­ed, Mam­moth is more in­ter­est­ed in the search func­tion of CRISPR.

Jeff Hu­ber

“CRISPR is bi­ol­o­gy’s search en­gine first,” Mar­tin told TechCrunch in an in­ter­view. “Con­trol + F is the ex­cit­ing part. At core it’s just this amaz­ing search en­gine that we can use to find things. The way that we search for things is just like Google.”

Now, Mam­moth has a round of fresh cap­i­tal to in­vest in its plat­form and staff. The $23 mil­lion round was led by May­field with par­tic­i­pa­tion from NFX and 8VC. Ap­ple’s Tim Cook and the first CEO of Sil­i­con Val­ley can­cer screen­ing start­up Grail, Jeff Hu­ber, al­so joined the round for an un­spec­i­fied amount.

Im­age: Co-founders Lu­cas Har­ring­ton, Trevor Mar­tin, Ash­ley Tehranchi, Jen­nifer Doudb­na and Jan­ice Chen. mam­moth bio­sciences

Digital therapeutics company Better Therapeutics announced on Thursday that it’s cutting 35% of its staff as it awaits FDA clearance for its first product.

The company, which launched eight years ago, is one of a growing group of companies seeking a digital alternative to traditional medicine. The space saw a record $7.5 billion in investments in 2021, according to Chris Dokomajilar at DealForma, with uses spanning ADHD, PTSD and other indications. However, private insurers have been slow to hop on board.

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.