Masked CTLA4 with much better safety compare to Ipi
$ADAG - Adagene Announces Dosing of First Patient in Phase 1 Study of Muzastotug in Combination with Incyte’s INCA33890 in Patients with Microsatellite Stable Colorectal Cancer
Congratulations
Surprise 1: Anthropic acquired a one-person biotech
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Surprise 2: that person is me
Surprise 3: I’m here to tell you all about it
Yes, this is what you think it is; after 6 yrs of increasingly loose anonymity: the Professor Oak reveal post
…and yes, it has gotten so boring around here that I’m literally doxxing myself to spice up the timeline
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Ok, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Cody Tranbarger. I mostly tweet, but occasionally find time to dabble in drug dev & starting/building biotechs. My past lives span the VC, crossover, startup continuum; Prof Oak has been my way of keeping a digital foot in those worlds, despite having my physical feet planted elsewhere.
The past 18 mo, ‘elsewhere’ was Mithril Medicine, a co. I founded to develop bsAbs for LAMA2-CMD & other ECM-related genetic diseases.
Mithril was born out of hands-on building with @MikeNGladstone, @JasonPaulRhodes, @LifeSciVC, & team @atlasventure. Somehow, I made enough half-decent calls along the way (even a broken clock is right twice a day, eh?) to convince them Mithril/I warranted a small seed. While I can hardly rationalize such an outrageously cavalier bet, I’m grateful for it, & I'd partner with Atlas again in a heartbeat.
In typical AV fashion, Mithril’s primordial form was virtual, decentralized, & ultra-lean. This stage tends to be short-lived, but for Mithril, it worked surprisingly well, for surprisingly long, thanks in part to the rapid maturation of the AI tools I used liberally.
Eventually, Mithril became a bit of an experiment itself - to find the upper bound of how far it could scale as a single operator + a bunch of Claude (+ a stellar bench of part-time consultants).
In parallel, I started spending time with @nc_frey, @an1lam, & @CoefficientBio team; and promptly experienced, for the 1st time, AI at the frontier. Soon thereafter, Mithril stopped looking like an experiment, & started looking like a preview of an entirely new operating model.
From that spark came “Pipeline-in-a-Person.” The idea immediately resonated when we shared it here back in April; and it was central to the shared vision that led to Anthropic’s acquisition of Mithril, & my joining the team.
Why join Anthropic? Three reasons.
(1) For Mithril, the programs continue, with more resources & infrastructure behind them, and as much Claude as I can put to work.
(2) For me, the chance to start several more programs, & find out how many one person can actually run in parallel - an almost unprecedented luxury for a curious drug hunter.
(3) For our mission, a path to institutionalize & scale this new way of working, then put it in the hands of all of biopharma, all over the world - which, candidly, I find the most energizing.
Will AI x Bio cure diseases? Unequivocally yes, imo… but not by the route that gets the most airtime. Rather than timeline acceleration & compression, I see orchestration & parallelization as today's low-hanging fruit.
Most drug hunters see a handful of go/no-go calls in a career, & spend entirely too much of the rest trading emails (my inbox can attest).
Give them the bandwidth to run several programs at once, and the time to focus on scientific judgment, and I’m willing to bet they’ll make better calls. And at scale, better calls translate to more drugs, higher hit rates, broader patient impact, & likely, a disease or 10 or 100 cured. I couldn't be more excited to build toward that future @AnthropicAI.
Finally, a heartfelt thank you to BioTwitter/X. The end of anonymity is bittersweet, but if anyone’s earned a proper introduction, you all have.
It’s difficult to overstate how much this app has done for me: a decade of education, plenty of friends, many job opportunities, several mentors, a few investors, even a co-founder (fmr). It was the generosity of this community that inspired me to start posting 6 years ago, after just as many years lurking. I hope I’ve been able to pay it forward, in my own small way.
But, to be clear, Prof Oak isn’t going anywhere. Same beat, same themes, and now, a front-row seat to drug development at the frontier. Stay tuned for dispatches from the trenches; and remember...
Gotta Cure 'Em All
avidresearch retweeted
JUST IN: UC Berkeley math professor stops grading homework for correctness, saying widespread AI use has made it "pointless," and now awards credit simply for turning in assignments.
$TNGX hilarious price action to highly durable ~80% response rate in 2L PDAC.
avidresearch retweeted
For the first time in history, nearly 60% of the S&P 500’s components are in a bear market, while the index trades 3% away from a record high.
avidresearch retweeted
Unlike the dot-com bubble, when global technology stocks surged far ahead of earnings, the current rally has been supported by stronger earnings growth.
Source: @steve_donze
$PFE BD should take a good look at this
avidresearch retweeted
Can u imagine . Not a single word or line about perioperative pembrolizumab use for presidential abstract discussion about melanoma in 2026 @myESMO .
Are u amazed ? @dr_yakupergun @DrYukselUrun @OncBrothers @JacobPlieth
Love PRMT5. Incredible durability (better than ADCs). $TNGX will get picked up soon IMO.
Room for multiple players. BeOne $BMY
avidresearch retweeted
Three legit candidates for a standing ovation at the Esmo presidential this afternoon: Interpath, Volga and Dellphi
JUST IN: DeLLphi-305: Small Cell Lung Cancer Extensive-Stage
Phase III (n=563): Tarlatamab + Durvalumab vs Durvalumab as 1L maintenance after chemo-IO, to be presented by our own @sands_jacob from @DanaFarber
• Median OS: 21.1 vs 12.7 months (HR 0.42)
• Median PFS: 7.4 vs 1.9 months (HR 0.34)
• ORR: 26.4% vs 4.1%
Grade ≥3 AEs: 46.8% vs 40.6%; CRS 49.6% (most low grade).
Probably new standard of care in ES-SCLC.
@OncoAlert @DanaFarberNews #ESMO26
avidresearch retweeted
Another interstitial lung disease death raises more deruxtecan doubts - this time with ralu-dxd plus Avastin at #ESMO26. The @ApexOnco take apexonco.com/esmo-2026-anoth…
avidresearch retweeted
PD-(L)1 blockade has made inroads into triple-negative breast cancer, but ER+/Her2- space is still a no go, judging by $MRK flop in Keynote-B49. From #Esmo26 via @ApexOnco -> apexonco.com/esmo-2026-keytr…
avidresearch retweeted
BMS has reported a new autoimmune CAR-T death, that it says look unrelated to its ICANS cases or Novartis' IEC-HS deaths that led the companies to pause their trials this summer $BMY
My story for @endpts:
endpoints.news/bristol-myers…
avidresearch retweeted
Tango reports 82% tumor response rate in trial of combo therapy (Daraxonrasib plus vopimetostat) for advanced #PancreaticCancer at #ESMO26
statnews.com/2026/10/23/esmo…
Reduced toxicity data is particularly important as a lower Daraxonrasib dose can be used.

























