Coming out of stealth mode, Switchpoint Bio, a biotech venture spanning Helsinki and Cambridge, has secured $5.3 million in pre-seed funding. Treehouse Delmar Investments led the round with a $5 million commitment.

Precision-targeted therapies have become increasingly sophisticated, yet physicians face a persistent challenge: understanding how a patient's biology responds to treatment and why some individuals benefit while others do not. Waiting months or years for clinical outcomes to become clear, relying on invasive tissue sampling that cannot be easily repeated, and using blood markers that show results without explaining underlying mechanisms all present significant limitations in monitoring treatment efficacy.

Switchpoint Bio's solution draws on a biological fact: circulating immune cells in the bloodstream carry epigenomic signatures reflecting disease, environmental exposures and therapeutic interventions. The company's platform merges epigenomic profiling with artificial intelligence to decode this cellular record, providing pharmaceutical developers with a scalable method to observe how disease and medication reshape human biology.

For those developing new drugs, the immediate value proposition centers on treatment response analysis. The platform addresses fundamental questions: What biological state exists before therapy begins? How does the drug alter that state, to what degree, and through which mechanisms? Which biological features remain unchanged despite intervention?

Quantifying these shifts over time could accelerate understanding of how drugs work, identify which patients will benefit, and explain resistance patterns—all without waiting for long-term clinical endpoints.

Drug developers need to know not only whether a patient responds, but what biology changed, what persisted and why. Our goal is to make these biological switchpoints visible from a routine blood sample, repeatedly and at the scale required for drug development.

Samuel Myllykangas, PhD, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Switchpoint Bio

From deep cellular biology to a scalable blood measurement

Epigenomics, single-cell analysis, large-scale population datasets and machine learning have converged to enable new possibilities: connecting blood-based measurements to the cellular mechanisms underlying disease. Single-cell multiomic approaches—which simultaneously examine multiple biological layers including DNA, RNA and proteins within individual cells—reveal intricate details of cellular function. Yet these methods typically demand fresh tissue, elaborate preparation steps and specialized equipment, making them impractical for repeated use across many patients throughout clinical trials.

Switchpoint Bio is constructing a practical alternative using targeted DNA methylation analysis drawn directly from blood. The assay concentrates on epigenomically relevant regions connected to disease and immune function, delivering comprehensive coverage of the methylome segments most critical for pharmaceutical research while maintaining cost efficiency.

Built at the intersection of genomics, epigenomics and drug development

Samuel Myllykangas, PhD, and Jason Buenrostro, PhD, founded the company after years of collaboration developing targeted sequencing methods during their time at Stanford University. Buenrostro, a MacArthur Fellow and Harvard professor, directs the Epigenomics Program at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and created ATAC-seq, a key technology for epigenomic analysis.

Myllykangas previously built and expanded Blueprint Genetics before Quest Diagnostics acquired it in 2020.

Three additional co-founders round out the leadership: Niilo Färkkilä, PhD, serving as Chief Commercial Officer, brings pharmaceutical sector experience from Amgen and GSK; Jussi Paananen, PhD, Chief Technology Officer, previously held the same role at Blueprint Genetics; and Mitja Kurki, PhD, Scientific Advisor, contributes expertise in population genomics and drug development data systems from FinnGen, a population study encompassing more than 500,000 individuals. Both Paananen and Kurki previously worked as researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

The company is transitioning from platform construction toward real-world testing. Switchpoint Bio is validating its technology in autoimmune conditions, particularly systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), to verify whether it can identify disease-relevant immune patterns from blood and track them through treatment progression.

Simultaneously, the startup is in advanced conversations with pharmaceutical and biotech firms about launching initial industry validation projects, with treatment response identified as a primary focus area.

We take a long-term view, backing science we believe can genuinely change how disease is understood and treated. Switchpoint Bio brings together exceptional scientific talent with a real path to turning breakthrough biology into evidence that helps patients, and we're proud to support that work.

Dave Proctor of Treehouse Delmar Investments

The capital raised will fund ongoing clinical and industry validation efforts, growth of the company's clinical and biobank data repositories, continued refinement of its epigenomic and AI technologies, and expansion of scientific and engineering staff in both Helsinki and Cambridge.

Source: Tech.eu