Calico Biosystems: The Venture Leader Medtech predicting early anti-cancer drug efficacy

11.10.2024 11:00, Rita Longobardi

Meet Marie-Agnès Doucey, CEO of Calico Biosystems. The Medtech startup has developed the only platform that tests drugs directly on patient tumors and is capable of reliably predicting drug efficacy in patients. In November, Marie-Agnès and the other nine Swiss National Medtech Team members will fly to Boston on a business development and investor roadshow.

Name: Marie-Agnès Doucey
Location: Epalinges (VD)
Nationality: French
Graduated from: University Louis Pasteur Strasbourg and European School of Biotechnology “ESBS”, Strasbourg. 
Job title: Co-Founder and CEO
Number of employees: 2
Money raised: CHF 250k
First touchpoint with Venturelab: Venture Kick, October 2023


Can you tell us who your product or solution helps, and how?
Calico Biosystems addresses the low efficacy of anti-cancer drugs. Each year, pharma and biotech companies develop 8,000 therapy candidates, but over 95% fail to receive FDA approval, primarily due to inadequate efficacy. The cost to develop a single drug is around USD 1 billion, yet fewer than 10% of cancer patients benefit from approved treatments. This high failure rate is largely due to artificial pre-clinical models that don’t capture patient tumor complexity. Calico's innovative approach uses native patient tumors to evaluate drug efficacy and incorporates computational modeling to identify optimal treatment combinations, preserving the tumor ecosystem and setting Calico apart from competitors.

What market are you addressing and what is the potential of your startup in that market?
Our customers develop drugs and therapies for cancer patients. They are large pharma biotech and mid-size pharma, and AI-powered drug developers located in the USA and the EU. We are addressing the global pre-clinical stage market of oncology drugs, this is a highly dynamic market with over 8000 new therapeutics under development annually and with a global estimate of 150B USD/year. The SAM we target (preclinical drug market in the USA and EU focused on the top 10 most frequent cancers) is valued at 20B USD/year and represents 280 newly developed therapeutics per year. In 2029, we will take 25% of this SAM which represents 8% of the global pre-clinical market. 

How and where did you come up with the idea for your startup?
I came up with this idea while listening to a talk on cell therapy by a great scientist from MD Anderson, a renowned cancer center in the USA. I was attending an international conference, and while I knew his work, I had the pleasure of listening to him for the very first time. It appeared clear to me that the field of oncology needed this game-changer and that we needed to try our best to implement it. Three years later, while I presented the first results, this scientist was in the audience and came to congratulate me for this innovation at the end of the presentation. Now, we are discussing a collaboration with his team.

What do you expect from the Venture Leaders Medtech roadshow, and how will it help you achieve your vision?
We wish to grow our business through strategic partnering and implant our marketing and sales office in the US and Switzerland.  Hence, the Venture Leaders Medtech roadshow is expected to bring 3 impulses to our business: First, understand how to penetrate the US market and establish good partnerships with US companies; Second, get our strategy challenged by US experts to get the best scalable business from our innovation. Third, we wish to keep the momentum and increase our traction towards US investors.    

What are your team’s key achievements to date?
Our key achievement besides the development of two innovative products is our product traction: 27 sale leads in 4 months. 

What is the most challenging and rewarding aspect of being a founder?
The most challenging aspect for a founder with a scientific background like me is to gain customers and sell products. The most rewarding is to witness the fact that our products make a difference for cancer patients.  

What is the most important lesson you have learned as a founder?
The most important lesson I have learnt is to do it when it is time and with the right people, seek multiple inputs from experts and take risks. There is no rule and no recipe for success, there is passion, determination, perseverance, and risks.  

What is your favourite productivity hack/tool and why?
Listening to jazz helps me focus on my work. I am also a lot more productive at night addressing critical issues while everyone is sleeping, silence is very powerful.

What was your dream job when you were a child?
As a child, I wanted to become a painter. At that time, I did not know much about sciences and later I became a scientist and love arts, especially painting.