Altay Therapeutics YC Application

Winter 2020Active

Altay Therapeutics went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2020 batch as a Healthcare company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Winter 2020
Industry: HealthcareTherapeutics
Team size: 6
Status: Active
Launched: 2020

Founders

Ali OzesFounder
Osman OzesFounder

What Altay Therapeutics does

Altay develops small molecule drugs to treat chronic liver diseases like liver fibrosis and liver cancer. Our co-founder Dr. Osman Ozes, led the first drug development program for Esbriet (Pirfenidone), resulting in the first FDA approved therapy for lung fibrosis. Esbriet is now a $1 billion/year drug and has already made over $6 billion in revenue. With a team that has over 70+ years of small molecule drug development experience, we intend to do the same with chronic liver diseases, which affects over 20 million Americans and represents a market size of over $30 billion. We know we are well positioned for success because we have shown excellent pre-clinical mouse data in several liver fibrosis models using our novel small molecule. We demonstrate a reduction in fibrosis with our drug, but more significantly, we show a reversal in fibrotic tissue back to normal tissue. With our current developmental strategy, we hope to have a clinic-ready compound by the end of 2021 and be in phase I clinical trials by mid of 2022.

Altay Therapeutics's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Altay Therapeutics, Winter 2020 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Altay Therapeutics

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Small molecule therapies for liver disease

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We develop small molecule drugs that target transcription pathways to treat chronic liver diseases like fibrosis and cancer. Our lead compound has shown in mouse models not just reduction but reversal of liver fibrosis, aiming for a clinic-ready drug by end of 2021 and phase I trials mid-2022.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

We live and work in San Francisco and South San Francisco, CA, which will remain our base after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

We chose to base the company in San Francisco because that's where the biotech innovation ecosystem and our team are. It keeps us close to partners, investors, and talent relevant to small molecule therapeutic development.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real Altay Therapeutics YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Altay Therapeutics's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Altay Therapeutics would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.