LEAH Labs YC Application
LEAH Labs went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2019 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 2019
- Industry
- HealthcareTherapeutics
- Team size
- 4
- Status
- Active
- Launched
- 2018
Founders
Wesley WiersonFounder
What LEAH Labs does
LEAH Labs is building living therapies for pets first, and their people next. We're first focused on CAR-T cell therapy for dogs with B cell lymphoma, the naturally occurring clinical analog of human non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. CAR-T cells are curative in humans, and our early results are showing the same - we're inducing remissions in pets with late stage lymphomas. Our virus-free gene editing platform allows us to engineer a dose of CAR-T cell therapy for ~$500, and brings the promise of a curative outcome. Given our safety and efficacy data to date, we believe this product could be used by general practice veterinarians, meaning we have thousands of customers all across the USA who typically treat with palliative care or refer cancer patients to specialty oncologists. Our CAR-T cell platform is regulated by the USDA, not the FDA, affording us a cost effective "full stack" to iterate and innovate on CAR-T cell therapy from a hypothesis through clinical validation.
LEAH Labs's YC application, reconstructed
Y Combinator application
LEAH Labs, Winter 2019 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.
- Founders2
- Company7
- Progress7
- Idea4
- Equity3
- Curious2
- Batch Preference1
Company
LEAH Labs
Living therapies for pets first, people next
We are building virus-free CAR-T cell therapies specifically for dogs with B cell lymphoma. Our product engineers living therapeutic cells that induce remission in pets, and we plan to extend this platform to human treatments later. The platform is designed to be cost-effective and usable by general practice veterinarians, expanding access to curative therapies outside specialty clinics.
We currently live and work in Minneapolis, MN, and the company will remain based there after YC.
Minneapolis has strong biotech resources and because our founders are here, it's practical and cost-effective to stay. Being under USDA regulation rather than FDA lets us iterate faster even from this location.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this the real LEAH Labs YC application?
No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from LEAH Labs's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like LEAH Labs would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.
What YC batch was LEAH Labs in?
LEAH Labs was part of the Y Combinator Winter 2019 batch.
Who founded LEAH Labs?
LEAH Labs was founded by Wesley Wierson.
What does LEAH Labs do?
Living therapies for pets first, and their people next
How do I read the full reconstructed application?
Create a free Round Funded account. The full 26-answer version of LEAH Labs's application, and every other YC batch, is in YC Insights.
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