For decades, drug discovery has shifted away from nature and toward biology-first approaches.
@viswacolluru believes that shift was a catastrophic mistake. His company, Enveda (
@lifeschemistry), has raised over $500 million to build a “search engine for nature’s chemistry.”
In our conversation, we explore:
• Why the pharmaceutical industry abandoned nature (and why that was a massive mistake)
• How Enveda built a system to decode unknown molecules in nature
• The deeply personal story of his mother’s battle with leukemia and how it shaped his life’s work
• Why old ideas, from immunotherapy to natural products, often hold the most latent potential
• How Enveda developed 18 drug candidates for about $1 million each instead of $10-15 million
• Enveda’s three leading drug candidates targeting eczema, obesity, and ulcerative colitis
• Why first-in-class medicines capture the vast majority of returns in pharma
• What competitive table tennis taught him about building companies
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(00:00) Introduction to Viswa Colluru
(07:06) Early pull toward technology
(14:24) Studying Biotechnology
(24:23) Innovation vs. novelty
(32:05) Joining Recursion
(40:42) What launched Enveda
(49:53) Chemistry-first approach
(52:17) Raising $225K and investing $55K personally
(56:04) Initial studies and targets
(1:18:27) Enveda’s long-term vision
(1:21:31) Book recommendation