Zylem Biosciences
Founded: 2018
Northwestern Inventor:
C. Shad Thaxton
Feinberg School of Medicine
Department of Urology
Zylem Biosciences is a startup biotechnology company developing targeted medicines that uniquely mimic features of natural biologics. Zylem’s lead compound (ZYL-001) directly targets pathologic cholesterol metabolism in cancer, heart disease and other conditions, and pathologic lipid metabolism in fatty liver disease (FLD) and obesity. ZYL-001 specifically targets a cell surface receptor to simultaneously: modulate cellular and systemic cholesterol and activate the adaptive immune system. ZYL-001 therapies are molecularly tunable and seamlessly interact with natural biological systems with no off-target toxicity. Its first-in-class mechanism of action (MOA) has been validated in small animal models of cancer and obesity.