‘Greg, you’ve got to bring back this platform’: How LifeMine won over Gates and Bezos for $188M series E

Biotech ‘Greg, you’ve got to bring back this platform’: How LifeMine won over Gates and Bezos for $188M series E By Darren Incorvaia Aug 6, 2026 6:30am LifeMine Therapeutics Jeff Bezos Bill Gates Organ transplants Last year, LifeMine Therapeutics laid off staff and put its fungus-based platform on ice to focus its dwindling resources on its lead asset. Now, the Massachusetts biotech is shaking off the cobwebs thanks in part to substantial investments from billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. LifeMine had already started back on the right financial track courtesy of a $75 million series D back in November 2025—which the company has only disclosed today—mainly featuring existing investors like GSK and Google Ventures.

Then last month, LifeMine CEO Gregory Verdine, Ph.D., met with Gates and Bezos and pitched them on the company’s approach to drug discovery. “Those guys were like, ‘Greg, you got to bring back this platform,’” Verdine recalled to Fierce. “They wanted to put much, much more money into the company than they were able to get because we just didn't want to raise more than what we raised.” The resulting $188 million series E ended up being three or four times larger than LifeMine had originally envisioned for the round, Verdine added.

RA Capital Management also joined the billionaires as a new investor. The platform that attracted Gates and Bezos is based on genes sequenced from 100,000 fungal strains, which LifeMine then organized into clusters based on the biosynthetic pathways involved. Within the next month, Verdine said, the biotech will begin using AI agents to sift through the 1,200 potential drug targets revealed by this process to unearth hidden gems.

The full potential of these drug targets spans across different therapeutic areas, an “embarrassment of riches” that Verdine claimed presents near-limitless opportunities for partnerships and out-licensing. LifeMine already has a fruitful relationship with investor GSK, though a drug discovery partnership between the pair has stalled after the Big Pharma reprioritized internally, he added. “It wouldn't surprise me if we had a ‘mark 2’ of that collaboration with them because of the really phenomenal relationship,” Verdine said.

But the near-term focus is LIFE-001, a next-generation immune suppressor that blocks the T-cell-activating enzyme calcineurin. Calcineurin inhibitors like cyclosporin, tacrolimus and Aurinia Pharmaceuticals’ Lupkynis are standard after transplants to prevent the immune system from rejecting the new organ, but come with significant toxicity. With LIFE-001, “we have cleanly stripped away the tox and we have preserved the efficacy—and we now know that in over 100 healthy volunteers at therapeutic dosages,” Verdine said.

The trick, he explained, is that LIFE-001 inhibits calcineurin before the enzyme has even been activated. LifeMine plans to launch a phase 1b trial in 12 patients undergoing islet cell transplantation, as well as a larger 150-patient phase 2 study in kidney transplantation comparing LIFE-001 to tacrolimus, early next year. Data readouts for both trials have been pencilled in for 2027.

The opportunity in organ transplants alone is massive, the CEO said, with the potential for LIFE-001 to generate $25 to $30 billion should it be approved. “That's not drinking any Kool-Aid,” he added. “Those are conservative numbers.” With most U.S.

transplants done in just 70 centers, it’s feasible for LifeMine to commercialize the drug on its own, Verdine said. Beyond transplants, LifeMine also intends to one day launch a trial testing LIFE-001 in autoimmune disease, most likely intractable ulcerative colitis, Verdine said. The company has a whole suite of other calcineurin-targeting drugs waiting in the wings to be developed or licensed.

Verdine has a long and storied history in biotech, having helped form Warp Drive Bio (now part of Revolution Medicines), Wave Life Sciences and Parabilis Medicines, among others. LifeMine’s resurgence from what Verdine called a “period of austerity” encapsulates the rising role of Silicon Valley in the biotech scene. Bezos, for example, is a major backer of buzzy startup Altos Labs, while AI giant Anthropic recently announced plans to make medicines of its own.

But for LifeMine, this tech largesse means rehiring employees who were previously furloughed, Verdine said, and keeping the company’s big dreams alive. “I just want to change the world,” he told Fierce. “We’re so lucky that we have this unique ability not just to dream up really exciting science, but actually to put it to work.” LifeMine Therapeutics Jeff Bezos Bill Gates Organ transplants Venture Capital Biotech