Apricot Therapeutics: The Venture Leader Biotech advancing data-driven drug discovery for targeted medicine

02.06.2025 11:00, Rita Longobardi

Meet Michael Zering, Co-Founder of Apricot Therapeutics. The biotech startup aims to become the "Google Maps" of the tumor cell by combining drug perturbations, image-based phenotypic profiling, systems biology approaches, and robust predictive modeling. In late June, Michael will join nine other Biotech innovators on a business development and investor roadshow in Boston.

Name: Michael Zering
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Nationality: Canadian / Swiss
Graduated from: MBA – Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
Job title: CEO / Co-Founder
Number of employees: 5
Money raised: CHF 10K


Can you tell us who your product or solution helps, and how?
Our goal is focused on cancer patients in 2 ways:
> To increase patient eligibility for personalized cancer treatment;
> To increase evidence-based drug recommendations for patients who do not show clinical response to standard of care (SOC) therapy;
> Ultimately, Apricot is focused on our customers, customers which are cancer patients. Our first beachhead is to establish accreditation with 5 hospitals and clinics in CH & EU. Once this is done, the 4idrp platform will be ready for Pharma to speed up their lead compound development.
What market are you addressing and what is the potential of your startup in that market?
We are addressing the need to enhance decision-making in clinical oncology. Current technologies fail to provide a holistic, contextual picture of how a patient's tumor responds to drugs within clinically relevant turnaround times. Despite significant progress in cancer therapy, the real-world clinical impact has remained modest. 85% of cancer patients either do not benefit from or are not eligible for targeted or immunotherapy.

How and where did you come up with the idea for your startup?
A conversation by the pool during the summer of 2022 — while speaking with my co-founder, Lucas Pelkmans, we discussed the unmet need for a specific type of missing data that could reduce risk for doctors and improve drug development. What sets our approach apart is not only the ability to assess whether a drug is effective, but also to understand the "why." This enables Apricot to predict effective combinations and likely clinical outcomes within just 5–7 days per patient — a vast improvement for clinical decision-making and, ultimately, patient care.

What do you expect from the Venture Leaders roadshow, and how do you think it will help you achieve your vision?
It’s no secret that the US is a key market for both funding and scaling. The opportunity to join a roadshow in person this June is incredibly compelling!

What are your team’s key achievements to date?
Apricot was founded in Zurich in September 2022. We hold worldwide exclusivity on two patent families that underpin our technology. We are grateful to be collaborating on a rare, randomized, interventional two-year ovarian cancer trial with a Swiss consortium. Additionally, our 4iDRP platform was selected in Q1 2025 by a German-based clinic to run two mini-trials for two cancer indications. I am incredibly proud of the team for what they’ve accomplished over the past 2.5 years — all through bootstrapping, generating customer revenues, and securing practically no funding to date. This is a huge achievement!

Is there a key principle or value that guides you as you build your company?
There is no substitute for good science, grounded in deliberate inquiry and rigor. We are committed to upholding this value while harnessing the power of new technology through collaborations with bright, ambitious people, all in the spirit of advancing this new frontier.

What is the most important lesson you have learned as a founder?
Things often take three times longer than planned, and if you don’t have a "Plan B," you don’t have a plan. As a startup entrepreneur, you need a constant supply of resilience and grit, along with excellent communication skills, to ensure everyone is aligned and working as a team.

What is your favorite productivity hack or tool and why?
LinkedIn for business development because it’s much more personal than email. If I am allowed to mention a second app, I recently discovered Banana.ch for running all accounting requirements.

What was your dream job when you were a child?
As a child, I was obsessed with floatplanes, and the idea of flying the famous DeHavilland Beaver as a professional bush pilot in the great north seemed like the most adventurous job. I was also intrigued by the thought that the livelihood of diverse, remote populations would depend on the pilot being reliable and daring every single day.