In 2014, Dr. José Mejia Oneto made the uncommon decision to step away from his medical residency in orthopaedic surgery. Holding both clinical surgical training and a PhD in organic chemistry, he saw an opportunity to combine his knowledge of organic chemical synthesis with targeted medical treatment. To learn the fundamentals of building a commercial biotechnology venture, Mejia Oneto began watching online lectures from Y Combinator’s Startup School. His goal was to establish a startup that could address the long-standing challenge of systemic chemotherapy toxicity by localizing drug activation directly at tumor sites.
Rapid Proof in the Laboratory
When Y Combinator launched its dedicated YC Bio initiative in 2015 to invest in early-stage life science founders, Mejia Oneto applied with his new company, Shasqi. According to Y Combinator, Shasqi became the very first therapeutics business funded under the program. During the intensive three-month accelerator batch, the company put its localized treatment approach to the test in preclinical animal models. Shasqi demonstrated that its targeted delivery system outperformed conventional chemotherapy in a breast cancer mouse model. These rapid laboratory results gave investors the confidence to fund Shasqi through a seed financing round and a subsequent Series A round, allowing the startup to move steadily through preclinical development.
Translating Click Chemistry to the Human Body
At the center of Shasqi’s scientific approach was a platform technology called Click Chemistry Activated Protodrug Against Cancer, or CAPAC. Click chemistry had spent years as a widely recognized laboratory technique, allowing chemical researchers to connect molecular components with high precision. However, the reaction had never been performed inside the human body. CAPAC applied this mechanism to hold therapeutic agents in an inactive protodrug form until they encountered an activating agent at the tumor site, triggering the click reaction locally. While initially focused on chemotherapies, Shasqi designed the CAPAC platform to extend across diverse therapeutic classes, including peptides, antibodies, and cytokines.
From Concept to Commercial IND Clinical Testing
In October 2020, Shasqi achieved a major clinical milestone by dosing its first two human cancer patients in Phase 1 trials. The trial operated under a commercial Investigational New Drug (IND) application—a formal regulatory status distinct from research or expanded-access INDs, because a commercial IND is the required pathway for securing general drug approval. The milestone made Shasqi the first YC Bio portfolio company to initiate commercial first-in-human clinical testing.
Bringing click chemistry out of laboratory test tubes and into human clinical trials demonstrated that high-precision chemical reactions could function inside living tissue. By showing that protodrug activation could occur locally in patients, Shasqi established a foundation for delivering chemotherapies, peptides, antibodies, and cytokines directly to tumor sites while reducing systemic side effects across healthy organs.
AI-generated editorial illustration; not a documentary photograph.
Source: First YC Bio company to start clinical trials
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