I am a biologist with PhD in biochemistry and cell biology and, post-doctoral stints from Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins. I have specialized in cancer drug discovery research since coming back to India in 2009 and, my last job was as an Associate Director with Amgen. I founded Mestastop in 2018.
Mestastop Solutions Pvt Ltd
Mestastop is a biotech company solely focused on cancer metastasis, the spreading of the cancer cells responsible for 90% of cancer deaths. Over the last two years, we have built three unique technology platforms. METAssay™ mimics the complete metastasis biology on the bench and distinguishes the moving metastatic cells from the growing tumor cells. METSCAN™ is a translational platform that analyses patient data sets and METVivo™ is an in vivo metastatic animal model platform that works only in six weeks. Together, these three platforms will empower us to focus on novel drug discovery and drug repurposing around metastasis and predict the early metastasis probability of treatment naïve primary cancer patients.
Captivation of top talents
The only way to attract top talent is to do top-class science that is both innovative and disruptive, which is not often done in India. We are happy in our comfort zone of services, generics, and biosimilars, and that needs to change.
Finding the ecosystem
It was a call between Hyderabad and Bengaluru, as both the cities have the best ecosystem and infrastructure for Biotech start-ups. As the core team was already located in Bengaluru, it was more of an organic choice.
The progression acts
I was and will always remain a scientist first. When we are ready, I think we will appoint the right person as the CEO, who will integrate our vision and scientific passion and with his expertise and experience in growing a business.
The inspiration behind the concept
I always believed biology is driven by simplicity, so cancer metastasis, no matter how complex it sounds, need to have simple biology and, therefore a simple solution. Thus, my belief in self and in simplifying biology started this journey, and as more and more data started feeding that thought, the concept just grew bigger and bigger.
What is your long-term goal?
Make Mestastop the “Infosys” of biotech in two decades from now, located in India, run by Indians, but addressing and solving global health problems.
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