Saku Biosciences

?? Saku Biosciences Summer 2024 Recap ?? As summer officially ends tomorrow, we’re reflecting on an incredible season of growth, milestones, and progress at Saku Biosciences. From laying the foundation for our lab to growing an all-star team and presenting our vision at Nucleate Pitch Day, this summer has been all about building the future of biotech. ?? Summer Highlights: ?? Founding of Saku Biosciences: Launched on May 13, 2024, with a talented team combining world-class expertise in science and business. ?? Nucleate Pitch Day: We unveiled our vision and won the Regional Scientific Excellence Award, generating excitement around our groundbreaking PicoShell technology. ?? Growing the Team: We've scaled our team that now includes heavyweights like Mary Bernard (former General Counsel of Credit Suisse First Boston) and Richard Hutton (Emmy and Peabody Award-winning media strategist). ??? Building Our Lab: In August, we moved into the Magnify Incubator at UCLA, where we’ve already started producing our first batch of PicoShells and are gearing up for the launch of our first services. As we move into fall, we’re focused on two major milestones: 1. Wrapping up our pre-seed round to fuel our next phase of growth. 2. Launching our initial services—with beta customers already lined up and eager to see what we’ve been working on! We’re also gearing up for several key industry events to share our vision and connect with potential investors and partners. Catch us at: SoCal Bio Investor Conference BioVentures Nexus Biocom’s CEO Summit BIO Investor Forum #LATechWeek at CNSI UCLA Innovation Showcase Stay tuned for exciting updates this fall as we continue to revolutionize biotech manufacturing. Follow Saku Biosciences to keep up with our journey! ?? #Biotech #Innovation #TeamGrowth #Startup #Summer #LATechWeek #Tech

?? A Major Milestone for Saku Biosciences! ?? We’re beyond thrilled to announce that our first batch of PicoShells has been made! ???????? This isn’t just a step forward—it’s a giant leap toward revolutionizing biotech manufacturing. For those unfamiliar, PicoShells are the breakthrough technology at the core of Saku that was invented by our CEO Mark van Zee in the Dino Di Carlo laboratory at UCLA Transitioning breakthrough technology from the academic lab to the commercial stage is no small task—it’s a journey full of hurdles and complexities that can take months to overcome. Today, we’ve successfully made that transition—a significant milestone that brings us one step closer to transforming biotech manufacturing! ?? So, what exactly are PicoShells? Imagine microscopic test tubes that help us identify the top-performing, one-in-a-million cells—the ones that grow the fastest, produce the most, and most greatly impact bio-manufacturing systems. We anticipate that this will have huge impacts on Gene therapies, Bioplastics, Industrial enzymes, and many more amazing industries! ?? Why does this matter? Developing high-performing producer cells with PicoShells will drastically reduce the costs of manufacturing these life-saving, world-changing products. But this is just Phase I of Saku’s vision. We’re building a next-gen technology stack that will solve some of the biggest challenges in biotech manufacturing. And trust us—this is only the beginning. We are now off to the races as we gear up to launch our groundbreaking services! ?? Follow Saku Biosciences to keep up with our journey and the innovations we’re working on to shape the future of biotech.

?? Los Angeles: The City of Storytellers ???? Every early-stage startup thrives by harnessing the unique resources of its home city. In Los Angeles, a city brimming with talented storytellers, there's an unparalleled opportunity to bring industries to life—especially those that often go unnoticed. We're excited to announce that Saku is partnering with one of the industry's best storytellers: Emmy and Peabody Award-winning Richard Hutton. Richard's remarkable career includes roles as Senior Vice President of Creative Development at Walt Disney Imagineering and Director of Media Development at Vulcan Inc., where he produced groundbreaking science documentaries like Strange Days on Planet Earth, Evolution, and Black Sky: The Race for Space. Richard currently serves as the Chief Media Strategist for Prellis Biologics, a rapidly growing AI antibody discovery company. With his vast experience, Richard will help Saku effectively communicate our vision and drive our growth as a company. But our mission goes beyond just Saku—we want to tell the stories that will help elevate the entire biotech industry and capture the public's imagination. Biotech has been lacking the compelling narratives that can inspire and engage the general public, and we're determined to change that. Follow Saku Biosciences to stay tuned on what’s to come. Catch us at pitch events across LA this Fall. Richard and Mark are cooking up something truly special. ??? #longLA

???????? First Day of Experiments at Saku Biosciences!???? Today marks a significant milestone as we kick off our first experiments at our new home, the Magnify Incubator at UCLA! After a thorough search across Los Angeles, we chose Magnify for its stellar resources that perfectly align with our needs for launching initial customer projects and R&D efforts. Our goal is to bring innovative solutions to the market, and Magnify is the ideal place to make this happen. A heartfelt thank you to Nikki Lin, Director of Magnify, and the exceptional CNSI team for ensuring a seamless transition into this beautiful space. Nikki and Saku's CEO Mark van Zee have been discussing the move for over 2 years, so we are incredibly excited that this day has finally arrived. We're energized by the potential of what we'll achieve together in the coming years. Proud to be a part of the Magnify community, and we're just getting started. ?? Stay tuned and follow Saku Biosciences for more updates—we have some thrilling developments in the pipeline that we can’t wait to share with you!

???? Moving Day Excitement! ??? This weekend was a monumental milestone for our team as we began moving essential equipment into our new lab space! ???? A massive shoutout to our incredible advisor, Jim Cooper, for generously lending us key pieces of equipment. His support has saved us tens of thousands of dollars in lab supplies, making a tremendous impact on our setup. We highly encourage everyone to check out his innovative new company, Blue-X. Stay tuned for more updates—we can’t wait to share our LA location with you all soon! ????? #TeamWork #Innovation #NewBeginnings #Gratitude #LabLife #Startup #LAtech #LAbiotech

?? Exciting News! ?? We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve reached a significant milestone in our journey, securing $250k in our pre-seed round! This achievement is pivotal as it enables us to commence laboratory experiments, marking the transition of Saku's core technologies from academic use-cases to commercial applications. A special shoutout to our co-founder, John Alden, for his exceptional leadership in our fundraising efforts. Stay tuned as we unveil our new LA-based lab space where these our first experiments will take place in the next few weeks! #startup #fundraising #innovation #tech #investment #LAtech #LAbiotech

To the moon ?? Congrats to the entire Saku Biosciences team and a special thanks to our mentors Jim Cooper, Colin Cook, Lital Gilad-Shaoulian, and Kelly Kaihara, PhD for positioning us to be ready for take off. More exciting things are in the works...

I am extremely pleased to announce the formation of Saku Biosciences. Translation: To bloom We use directed cellular evolution to generate high-yielding producer cell lines. Directed cellular evolution was a concept the Prof. Dino Di Carlo proposed over 15 years ago as necessary to advance the industry. Unfortunately, there was a lack of tools to test, screen, and isolate cells based on key phenotypic properties such as growth and secretion rate. Over the past 8 years, I have been engineering PicoShell technology, the first high-throughput screening technology that is specifically designed to test cells based on yields, making directed cellular evolution possible. After countless hours, many nights sleeping in the lab, and many doubts that I would ever reach this point, I am extremely excited to finally bring this out of the lab and into the real world. If you want to keep up to date, please follow us at Saku Biosciences Check us out at Nucleate pitch day if you want to learn about the company vision and model - https://lu.ma/la

?? What a great Ignite22 at AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles hosted by Braid Theory and Ann Lee Carpenter ?? ?? Hopefully many of these innovative blue tech companies raise the funds to help clean up and heal our waters, coast to coast?? Thanks Jim Cooper for the invite and Innovate Marquette SmartZone for helping me get there ?? Oh, Hey ?? Canada ?? thanks for the syrup FREDsense Technologies Metastate Bio Saku Biosciences Blue-X Mark van Zee Millicent Pitts Omar Brownson Sean Sandbach