Elizabeth Messersmith

Quark Pharmaceuticals, Inc. discovers and develops novel RNAi-based therapeutics. The firm’s products include QPI-1002 and QPI-1007 is being developed as a neuroprotective agent for the treatment of optic neuropathies that result in the death of retinal ganglion cells. The company was founded by Daniel Zurr, David M. Fineman and J. Gregory Swendsen in December 1993 and is headquartered in Fremont, CA.

Balance Therapeutics, Inc. develops therapeutics to address conditions of intellectual disability. Its pharmacological approach, based on technology licensed from Stanford University, hypothesizes that restoring the proper balance between inhibition and excitation at the neuronal synapse by antagonizing excessive inhibitory circuits could result in the appropriate plasticity for memory and learning to occur in many conditions of intellectual disability. The company was founded by Lyndon Lien, Craig Garner and Daniel Wetmore in 2009 and is headquartered in San Bruno, CA.