brom

wife = @samalanascience
fund = @xeia_vp

[brom @therealbrom]

@samalanascience @justinskycak HanziQ

[brom @therealbrom]

great opportunity for whoever is defending the non-invasive thought to text side wear a thought to text EEG device and do all their communicating in the debate by having their thoughts transcribed on big TV next to them.

since thought to text is so good, they will easily win the debate due to their superior information bandwidth

[brom @therealbrom]

Very bullish on America 🇺🇸

[sam (tabone) rector @samalanascience]

Compass' stock is down almost 30% since market open, likely because retail investors are losing their shit over the Usona news.

Usona is developing the same API (psilocin) in a different formulation for a much larger target indication (MDD vs. TRD). News broke that Usona filed their NDA (last step in the regulatory process), which some sources like Psychedelic Alpha are suggesting MAY give them an edge over Compass.

It’s extremely unusual for a commercially successful drug to have been taken through to NDA by a non-profit. There are examples, but not in neuroscience. I think the commercial strategy knowledge piece could be a major variable in who wins the market, regardless of how unusually the nonprofit is positioned. What I'm specifically referring to here is actually market access and less modality of delivery. Who has the prescriber and PBM relationships? The future success of a drug product like this is also probably somewhat dependent on BD relationships, especially because neither Usona or Compass have a proven track record in handing off drugs post-approval.

On a somewhat unrelated tangent, I attended the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy for my Masters degree in Psychoactive Pharmaceuticals, and witnessed a somewhat failed attempt to build care delivery programming. I'm almost certain the the Wisconsin network has been trying to gain an edge in care delivery education and know-how, but I'm not sure this regional affiliation is any reason to believe that it's going to translate into some sort of edge commercially for Usona.

I'm of the opinion that specialized care delivery is an overly analyzed segment. Care delivery knowledge and know-how will probably be helpful in understanding what a post-marketing commercial rollout can look like (specifically in terms of assumptions on the finmod), but I don't think it's the major piece here.

[brom @therealbrom]

@_ramsaybrown hell yea

[brom @therealbrom]

@aryelipman small check / big vibez

[brom @therealbrom]

congrats to the biosphere team!

[Arye Lipman @aryelipman]

Today @biosphereio is announcing a $21m contract with @DeptofWar to advance our industrial biomanufacturing systems for production of critical chemicals domestically, at scale and at dramatically lower cost. Expanding the US' ability to make chemicals for energy, food, medicine, and defense is crucial to our survival. We're solving this with the most potent and capable manufacturing technology known to man: biology. https://t.co/GEgI2LpUe4

[brom @therealbrom]

@matisere @samalanascience thank you sir!

[brom @therealbrom]

Today, Founders Fund and OpenAI confirmed what @samalanascience and I have known since 2024: that Coherence Neuro is one of the coolest companies in neurotech.

> Their focus on cancer is completely orthogonal to the standard neurotech mental health / neurodegeneration play.

> Their non-Silicon Valley roots give them a pragmatism and focus on actually producing real results.

Recognizing that led us to invest in 2024, and Coherence has since been kind enough to let us double down in the seed and triple down in today’s Series A.

We couldn't be more stoked for Elise Jenkins, Ben Woodington and the rest of the Coherence team. Congrats!

[Ben Woodington @WoodingtonBen]

We’ve raised a $45m Series A, co-led by

@foundersfund and The @OpenAI Startup Fund, to build cancer therapy that learns. Technology is rapidly changing medicine, but data loops and rapid adjustments are still largely missing. When you start cancer treatment, knowing whether what you’re doing is working is too slow. Clearly there is a better way. Build systems to watch cancer in real time, then feed that data into a system that itself can treat the disease. This seeds a future where, unlike drugs, we develop medicine that continuously learns to improve itself. We've been building neurotechnology and BCI platforms to do just that.

@coherenceneuro

[Ramsay @_ramsaybrown]

@UseMissionCtrl wants to turn every machinist into Tony Stark.

That's why we built Bob. The Co-Engineer for real life.

If you're building something, DM me. We're delivering pelican cases of Bob every week.

https://t.co/4l0ReEf7Cc

[brom @therealbrom]

great article about this history of the Thiel Fellowship (including some mentions of yours truly)

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

Permission to Think for Yourself: Inside the Thiel Fellowship's Early Years:

https://t.co/3E5ZAaRrWv

[brom @therealbrom]

@DStrachman That was a great piece! And thanks for the shoutout haha

[brom @therealbrom]

Experimenting with something new in the compute markets (buying/selling/hedging gpu capacity). If you're doing anything remotely related to this and want to chat, please reach out.

[brom @therealbrom]

F&F round actually means "Fuckaround & Findout round"

[sam (tabone) rector @samalanascience]

Lily runs a Chinese takeout spot in the Outer Richmond that kicks ass. Her storefront sign recently went SF viral - she had no idea! I went to go show her.

Go visit her! She loves chatting about many different things and getting a chance to learn about others’ lives. A true neighborhood gem. Love you Lily!

[Vaughn Blake @VaughnBlake]

#NewProfilePic

[brom @therealbrom]

Bryan discovering moves that teenage me had figured out

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

lmk if you want a video demo

[sam (tabone) rector @samalanascience]

Foundation models for brain data are a hot topic in the neurotech world.

Hemispheric and its $52M Series A raise catalyzed a lot of hype and assumptions around scaling laws applied to EEG data without any substantial discourse around the obvious representation problem that exists with EEG data. (This was my impression based on the people I spoke with who cited Hemispheric and made erroneous generalizations about what their work meant for neurotech writ large; I never spoke with Hemispheric directly).

Companies like Piramidal, Alljoined, Constellation, and Conduit are just some of the many companies leveraging brain data en masse to build foundation models with interesting applications. Data collection > models > applications. There's a race to the top in terms of who can collect the most data the quickest.

But I remain puzzled for one reason: Neuroscience as a Service (NaaS) is not an established market yet. While I'm excited about all of these companies, I have seen first hand just how much effort is required to get a deal going with a corporate partner and a neurotech. Some founders talk to me about their GTM assumptions, which are very clearly unsubstantiated. Assuming that the market will come to you if you collect enough data is the wrong move here. You have to be trailblazing on the corp dev & BD side of things simultaneously - just like any other startup, distribution is 90% of the battle.

I'm further perturbed by the lack of progress in addressing the representation problem in EEG. I'm optimistic that some companies are using modalities other than EEG (I know some are using td-fNIRS), but I still don't understand how to make the venture case for these models (i.e. generating a significant return in less than ten years) when the hardware moat and physics/engineering insights aren't owned outright by the company.

I recently parted ways with @KernelCo, but I'm still extremely bullish on the tech and have had many conversations about how this company could come out on top as the NVIDIA of neurotech. Kernel was able to accomplish so much over the past 3 years and much of these accomplishments have been under-publicized (which I'm thinking about resolving with my own writing). The company has spent years pioneering what the NaaS offering is. I'm not quite sure anyone else has.

The institutional knowledge that comes with building a completely new modality for brain data collection and trying to commercialize it across several verticals at once is immense.

I'm super bullish on new modalities in neurotech/BCI where the company owns the hardware IP. Hoping to gain a better understanding of who's who in this segment over the next few months.

[brom @therealbrom]

@DStrachman feels like 1517 is on a generational run right now

[brom @therealbrom]

@DStrachman @TheAnnaGat For what it’s worth, I always frame it like, “you know Danielle? She created the Thiel Fellowship” ☺️