Curve Biosciences Founder and CEO Ritish Patnaik [Photo: Curve Biosciences]

A Plano-born biotech founder has returned to North Texas to establish the headquarters for his company, Curve Biosciences, at Pegasus Park, the nationally recognized life science and biotech innovation hub in Dallas.

Curve announced it has raised $40 million in funding led by Luma Group with participation from First Spark Ventures, Techas Capital, Micah Spear, Civilization Ventures, LifeX Ventures, Incite, Mintaka VC, NZVC, and others.

The company said the funding will advance the clinical validation and commercialization of its Whole-Body Intelligence platform, with a goal of “transforming” chronic disease monitoring.

Curve’s founder and CEO, Ritish Patnaik, left Texas to pursue his doctorate from Stanford University on the West Coast, the company said, but decided to open Curve’s headquarters back near his home turf.

“Chronic diseases are on the rise, and healthcare costs are skyrocketing as a result. We need to improve patient monitoring to realize the positive impacts of breakthroughs like GLP-1s,” Patnaik said in a statement. “To raise the standard of chronic disease monitoring, we are now introducing the first Whole-Body Intelligence platform with AI models trained on our Whole-Body Atlas and fueled by our Whole-Body Blood Tests. We’ve paired this platform with a successful executive team to realize our vision for proactive, personalized chronic care that minimizes suffering.”

Curve Biosciences, which calls itself the “Whole-Body Intelligence” company, has created what it calls “the first molecular blueprint of the human body” with its Whole-Body Atlas—said to be the world’s largest collection of manually curated tissue samples characterized by organ and disease state. By returning to “tissue-level biological truth,” the company says it’s creating simple, proactive Whole-Body Blood Tests that anticipate chronic disease, guide treatment, and align patients, insurers, pharma, and doctors.

More on Curve founder and leadership

Born and raised in Plano, Patnaik attended Plano public schools and the University of North Texas before leaving in 2012 for Stanford. At the time of Patnaik’s graduation from Stanford, DFW lacked biotech infrastructure, presenting no viable path to build or fund a biotech company, the founder said.

Flash forward to today. North Texas has established itself as a leading hub for biotech innovation, and the 26-acre Pegasus Park campus is home to more than 885,000 square feet of office and lab space, including 37,000 square feet dedicated to BioLabs Pegasus Park, designed for startups, and 135,000 more for Bridge Labs, for those that graduate into the next phase of funding and growth.

Curve’s executive team includes, per the company:

  • Patnaik, PhD, CEO – Former business development at Genentech, with deep expertise in AI, data engineering, and precision testing.
  • ·Nathan Hunkapiller, PhD, chief scientific officer – Previously head of R&D at Natera and Head of R&D at GRAIL, where he led the development of advanced blood tests for oncology, prenatal screening, and hereditary cancer screening.
  • Alice Chen, PhD, chief operating officer – Former head of product and program management at GRAIL, where she led strategy for a multi-cancer early detection blood test, after leadership roles at Natera, Progyny, and Sienna Biopharmaceuticals.
  • Chuba Oyolu, PhD, chief technology officer – Founding scientist and senior site director at Counsyl, where he led the automation, delivery, and scaling of advanced blood tests for prenatal screening and hereditary cancer screening.
  • Prof. Shan Wang, PhD, chief innovation officer and scientific founder – Leland T. Edwards Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University with 300+ publications and 70+ issued or pending patents over his 30+ year academic career.

 
‘Next frontier in clinical testing’

Curve said it will provide more information on its Whole-Body Intelligence platform and chronic disease pipeline in the coming months.

“We believe Curve’s Whole-Body Intelligence platform represents the next frontier in clinical testing, with the potential to fundamentally reshape how we monitor and manage chronic disease,” said Themasap Khan, PhD, co-founder and partner at Luma Group. “By anchoring in human tissue data, Curve is building a clinically actionable platform with clear reimbursement potential and massive market applicability.”

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R E A D   N E X T

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