Compound is a research and thesis-driven fund investing in frontier tech across AI/ML, robotics, crypto, and bio. We have a public database of areas we’re currently tracking and always adding to it.
Feel free to reach out if your building here or in adjacent verticals - we’d love to chat.
Thesis 1: Adding women’s health to longevity
I recently saw this apt blog post by Erika Alden that opined on the discrepancy in menopause-delaying research as compared to general longevity research. If you get a chance, read it over - her comical antagonism is on point!
Isn’t there a way to do this already?! In fact, there is an it’s called ovarian tissue replacement! I think this treatment should be layered into fertility clinics and be part of health practices as we continue to expand our lifespans. Read more here.
Concept
Delaying the onset of menopausing using ovarian tissue transplantation - infrastructure and awareness needed.
Longer Description
Ovarian tissue resection and reimplantation is a common practice for people undergoing cancer treatment. This is due to the DNA damage that one’s body incurs during various regimes of chemo and radiation which could inadvertently be passed through the germ cells to children. Also individuals which undertake gender affirming surgery have elected to preserve their ovarian tissue.
After resection, the egg-producing tissue (called ovarian cortex) can be reimplanted to increase the possibility of pregnancy and enable natural hormone production to delay the onset of menopause. Delaying menopause is non-trivial as post-menopausal hormone replacement can cause higher risks of breast cancer, blood clots, and other hormone-dependent tumors. Menopause itself can lead to a whole host of mood, body, and quality of life issues so delaying onset is very important as we continue to life longer lives and want to extend our healthspan.
To get widespread use, we need better infrastructure for people to be able to electively store their ovarian tissue and scientific improvements. The grafting of ovarian tissue does not always take due to vasculature issues - with 30% of people becoming pregnant after.
Other Thoughts
Most of the players in ovarian tissue preservation are hospitals and not for-profit clinics. This presents an opportunity for existing fertility clinics to expand their offering. However, the process of ovarian tissue resection and re-implantation is more involved so clinics could verticalize around this aspect.
Another place where ovarian tissue replacement would be well-placed is in the future’s longevity clinics which might also serve brain, skin, and metabolism.
Ovarian tissue replacement is just one step, the real Mecca is being able to synthesize ovarian cortex without needing to take samples.
Comparable Companies
Related Reading
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2022.950297/full
https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/patient-education/ovarian-tissue-freezing
https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12967-019-02149-2
Thesis #2: Rewarding biosampling
Concept
A new ways of collecting and incentivizing biological data collection.
Longer Description
Passive monitoring is a gold standard for bio sampling (why Levels has been successful and why we’re interested in toilet monitoring technologies).
In the absence of passive monitoring devices, rewarding undesirable sampling could be an interesting solution. In itself a company could partner with established D2C companies with their ‘rewarding’ bio-sampling or fully verticalize. In the short term, verticalizing makes the most sense but as D2C tests and biohacking become more prevalent, partnership models (inc. royalties) could be compelling.
This line of thought was inspired by CandyPop which allows for at-home sampling for strep throat for children. This has since been extended to mircobiome sampling in children.
Other thoughts
Thoughtful GTM would be necessary - with high need and low compliance being the best place for market entry
Clever market expansion would also be needed in order to obtain venture-scale business size (and still may not be possible)
Rewards could come in many forms and monetary rewards are what the DeSci community have been talking about for years! Maybe it’s time to think more about this. Helium (5G hotspot) and Hivemapper (dashcam for the world’s roads) are examples in the crypto space of providing a service for tokens.
The issue historically with selling health data is that it costs more to get it than what it’s worth by itself. However, given the lower costs of sequencing, the dynamics in this rewarding bio data could change considerably in the next few years.
Related Reading
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/lc/d1lc01132d
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.14.524039v3.full.pdf
This is just a sample of our theses and we’re constantly updating our lists. Read all of our theses here.