Many Phase II/III drug candidates are shelved despite strong efficacy and safety data — not because the science failed, but because they no longer fit a sponsor's financial, strategic, or portfolio priorities. We're building Vanguard, a proprietary platform that finds these assets and identifies the ones with a real, near-term path back to patients — without starting a new clinical development program.
Every year, biotech and pharma sponsors discontinue clinical-stage candidates that already cleared human trials. They're written off not because they failed — but because the company around them did.
A regulator asks for more data on the full population, while a smaller subgroup already showed a real, high-unmet-need response — too narrow for the sponsor to keep chasing.
The sponsor runs out of cash before the program finishes — an operating decision with nothing to do with how the molecule performed.
A merger, a bankruptcy, or a sudden change in priorities moves the asset to the bottom of the list — regardless of the data behind it.
Vanguard screens shelved and discontinued clinical-stage assets against three criteria. Pass all three, and an asset is actionable — no new trial required.
Demonstrated safety and a real efficacy signal — even if only in a subgroup, not the full trial population.
Discontinued for financial, strategic, or corporate reasons only — never for lack of clinical merit.
A rare-disease or high-unmet-need subgroup with strong efficacy and safety data, eligible for direct entry into France's AAP.
We built our first pipeline by hand — reading trial registries, regulatory filings, and conference abstracts ourselves, with zero outside capital and no paid data license. Vanguard turns that manual process into an always-on system that finds the next asset automatically.
The system pulls continuously from clinical trial registries, regulatory filings, conference abstracts, company disclosures, and paid private databases — at machine scale, around the clock.
Every candidate is scored against the same proprietary criteria: proven clinical efficacy, a non-clinical discontinuation reason, and a credible path into the AAP — the exact framework that found our current pipeline.
Instead of one founder-led search, the system runs continuously — surfacing ranked, actionable candidates as new data goes public, so sourcing keeps compounding instead of resetting with every deal.
We're raising a seed round to license our first asset, bring it through France's AAP, and continue building Vanguard's sourcing platform. If you invest in clinical-stage biotech, distressed pharma assets, or platform-driven deal sourcing, this is worth a conversation.