What criteria matter when scoring drug candidates?

Register for Founder University Japan’s Kickoff: https://luma.com/cm0x90mk

Today’s show:

*The key to avoiding long airport delays? Low-altitude sea planes! Why didn’t you think of that?

We’ve got an awesome line-up of TWiST 500 founders giving us an inside glimpse inside their startups on this Friday special edition.

FIRST: Billy Thalheimer of REGENT introduces us to their aircraft/boat hybrid The Seaglider, and walk us through how it all works, AND why they’re operating in BOTH the commercial and defense sectors from their Rhode Island HQ.

THEN, we’ve got Convexia co-founder Ayaan Parekh showcasing how they’re using a collective of specialist AI agents to exploit other pharma labs’ leftovers and turn them into new drugs and treatments for rare diseases.

FINALLY, Hunter Leath of Archil joins the show to tell us why efficient utilization of cloud data remains a surprisingly complex, and unsolved problem. His solution? Caching-as-a-Service! Find out how it all works, and why pre-caching is SO difficult to do, in this TWiST exclusive chat.

Timestamps:

• (03:01) Billy Thalheimer of REGENT introduces us to the Seaglider
• (05:06) Inside the EV aircraft/boat hybrid’s three modes of operation
• (08:22) How REGENT uses low altitude flight to avoid airport-related hassles

(9:42) Sentry - New users get 3 months free of the Business plan (covers 150k errors). Go to ⁠http://sentry.io/twist⁠ and use code TWIST

• (13:57) The converging tech that makes Seaglider possible
• (18:20) How REGENT is operating in BOTH the commercial and defense sectors
• (19:39) LinkedIn Ads - Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. Launch your first campaign and get $250 FREE when you spend at least $250. Go to ⁠http://linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups⁠ to claim your credit.
• (25:05) Why Rhode Island?!
• (29:23) Pipedrive - Bring your entire sales process into one elegant space. Get started with a 30 day free trial at ⁠https://pipedrive.com/twist⁠
• (31:04) Convexia co-founder Ayan Parekh joins Alex to discuss “the world’s first AI-maximalist pharmaceutical company”
• (33:02) Using AI agents to revisit leftover bio IP and unused data
• (33:22) Why so many drugs fail to reach market
• (35:46) Applying different agents to different kinds of tasks
• (44:26) The unique opportunities posed by rare diseases
• (46:58) On the road toward vertical integration
• (50:48) Hunter Leath of Archil tells us why utilizing cloud data effectively remains a complex, unsolved problem
• (51:56) What is “Caching as a Service”?
• (55:53) Why pre-caching is NOT obvious and “tremendously difficult to do”
• (57:00) Why the major cloud players didn’t built this themselves
• (01:00:37) Deliberately keeping the focus narrow… for now…

Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com

Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com

Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp

Follow Lon:

X: https://x.com/lons

Follow Alex:

X: https://x.com/alex

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm

Follow Jason:

X: https://twitter.com/Jason

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Thank you to our partners:

Sentry - New users get 3 months free of the Business plan (covers 150k errors). Go to http://sentry.io/twist and use code TWIST

LinkedIn Ads - Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. Launch your first campaign and get $250 FREE when you spend at least $250. Go to http://linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups to claim your credit.

Pipedrive - Bring your entire sales process into one elegant space. Get started with a 30 day free trial at https://pipedrive.com/twist

Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

Follow TWiST:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups

Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com