General Proximity
YC W20San Francisco, US Β· 15 employees Β· Hiring Β· 17 known investors
General Proximity develops proximity-based technologies for drug discovery and development. The company employs scientists from leading academic and pharmaceutical institutions.
Also known as Weatherwax Bio Β· GP
Founders & leadershipΒ· Y Combinator alumni (W20)
Investors Β· 17
Also in the syndicate Β· 13
Company profile
researched Aug 2026General Proximity is a San Francisco-based, seed-stage biotechnology platform company developing induced-proximity medicines aimed at protein targets considered undruggable by conventional small-molecule approaches. Its central premise is that biological processes are regulated by proximity between proteins, and that deliberately inducing or reshaping interactions between a 'target' protein and 'effector' proteins can produce outcomes such as activation, refolding, relocalization, reprogramming, functional modulation or degradation of the target. The company describes the full set of proteins that modulate other proteins β chaperones, adaptor and trafficking proteins, and post-translational-modification readers, writers and erasers β as the 'effectome,' which it screens as a source of therapeutic mechanisms.
The company's proprietary platform, marketed as OmniTAC, is described as a generalized, mechanism-agnostic proximity discovery engine that performs unbiased effector discovery to identify the most effective proximity mechanism for a given target, producing bifunctional therapeutics. Its first wave of drug candidates spans oncology, cardiometabolic disease, neurodegenerative disease and longevity; one named program addresses triple-negative breast cancer. The company states a potential addressable market exceeding $250 billion per year.
General Proximity was founded in 2019 by Armand B. Cognetta III, PhD, who serves as Founder and CEO. Its staff includes a Chief Business Officer (Timothy Herpin), an SVP of Drug Discovery and Head of Chemistry (Andreas Maderna), and scientists across chemistry, platform, structural biology, functional genomics, cancer biology and computational biology, with a scientific, clinical and strategic advisory board that includes Lawrence G. Hamann, Andy Crew, Nicholas T. Hertz, Kumar Gondi, Steve Djuric, John Burkhardt, Margaret Dugan, Martin Babler and Scott Forrest.
Founding story
The company is described as the brainchild of Armand B. Cognetta III, PhD, a veteran of Benjamin Cravatt's chemical biology group at Scripps Research, where he co-authored 19 publications in journals including Cell, Nature and Science and contributed to patents forming part of the foundational IP for Abide Therapeutics (acquired by Lundbeck) and Vividion Therapeutics (acquired by Bayer). Before founding General Proximity he was an early employee at Flagship Pioneering startup Inzen Tx (now Sonata). The founding thesis is that biological proximity is a master regulator of biology and that controlling it enables modulation of targets outside the reach of conventional drugs.
Business model
Platform biotechnology company that applies its proprietary OmniTAC induced-proximity discovery platform to build an internal pipeline of drug candidates while also entering multi-target discovery collaborations with pharmaceutical partners, such as the announced collaboration with Daiichi Sankyo's Boston research institute. Operations are additionally supported by non-dilutive government grants (ARPA-H, NIH National Cancer Institute SBIR).
Sources do not disclose revenue. Funding to date consists of venture equity, angel investment, corporate/strategic investment, and non-dilutive grant awards; pharmaceutical collaborations such as the Daiichi Sankyo agreement are described without disclosed financial terms.
Traction
Raised $16M in total disclosed venture funding, including an $8M seed led by Felicis; five big-pharma 'Golden Ticket' awards; selection into J&J's JLABS incubator; a $3M ARPA-H Sprint for Women's Health award and a ~$400K NIH NCI SBIR Phase I grant for a triple-negative breast cancer program; a multi-target oncology collaboration with Daiichi Sankyo announced November 2025; and investment from FreeMind Investments and Daewoong Pharmaceutical announced May 2026. The company reports team-level credentials of 40+ FDA-approved medicines, 175+ INDs, 270 patents and 1,034 publications; the de-stealth release cited over 200 clinical programs and 36 FDA-approved medicines.
Latest developments
May 2026: FreeMind Investments and Daewoong Pharmaceutical invested in the company, with the announcement noting interest in a potential future strategic collaboration with Daewoong. November 2025: multi-target oncology discovery collaboration announced with Daiichi Sankyo via its Daiichi Sankyo Research Institute in Boston; Dr. Margaret Dugan joined the scientific advisory board.
βΈFull profile β market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Positioned within the induced-proximity/targeted protein modulation field alongside degrader-focused companies, differentiating on breadth of effector mechanisms rather than a single degradation pathway. Third-party coverage describes it as a seed-stage company that emerged from stealth in January 2025 with $16M raised.
Unbiased, mechanism-agnostic effector discovery across the full effectome rather than a predefined set of proximity mechanisms, intended to identify the most efficacious proximity mechanism per target; a founding and advisory team drawn from Scripps, the Broad Institute, Harvard, MIT, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, UPenn, Johns Hopkins, Columbia and UCSF and from pharma including Lilly, Novartis, AbbVie, Bristol Myers Squibb, Amgen, Genentech, Roche, Alnylam and Arvinas, including veterans of the Craig Crews and Amit Choudhary labs.
Technology
OmniTAC is described as the first generalized, mechanism-agnostic proximity discovery engine. Rather than relying on a fixed effector such as a single E3 ligase, the platform screens the 'effectome' β chaperones, adaptor and trafficking proteins, PTM readers/writers/erasers and other effector proteins β in an unbiased manner to identify which proximity mechanism most effectively modulates a given target. Induced proximity events can drive activation, refolding, relocalization, reprogramming, functional modulation or degradation, with the company producing bifunctional small-molecule therapeutics. The company also works with AWS on HealthOmics and high-performance computing resources under an ARPA-H program.
Go-to-market
Combines internal pipeline development with pharma-facing business development: participation in big-pharma pitch competitions (five 'Golden Ticket' awards from AbbVie, Servier, Astellas, Ono and Bristol-Myers Squibb), residency in Johnson & Johnson's JLABS incubator, academic collaborations (UCSF, Moffitt Cancer Center), and multi-target collaboration agreements with pharmaceutical partners.
Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies seeking discovery partnerships for hard-to-drug targets, and ultimately patients with oncology, cardiometabolic, neurodegenerative and aging-related indications.
Geography
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, with laboratory/incubator affiliations including Johnson & Johnson JLABS and MBC Biolabs; collaborations span UCSF, Moffitt Cancer Center, and Daiichi Sankyo's research institute in Boston.
History
Founded in 2019 and part of Y Combinator's Winter 2020 batch. It received an NIH NCI SBIR Phase I award in February 2024, added multiple advisors through 2024 (Gondi Kumar in July 2024; Steve W. Djuric and Scott Forrest in August 2024; Andy Crew in September 2024), and was named an ARPA-H Sprint for Women's Health awardee in October 2024. An $8M seed round was reported by Axios in December 2024, and the company de-stealthed publicly on January 3, 2025 with $16M raised and the OmniTAC platform. In 2025 it announced expanded AWS support under the ARPA-H program (June), a multi-target oncology collaboration with Daiichi Sankyo (November), and the addition of Margaret Dugan to its scientific advisory board (November). In May 2026 it announced investment from FreeMind Investments and Daewoong Pharmaceutical.
Risks & controversies
Sources indicate an early-stage company with no disclosed clinical-stage assets, revenue or pipeline milestones. Reporting is inconsistent in places: a third-party aggregator lists the seed round's other investors as Amino Collective, Balderton Capital, Creandum, Founders Fund, Presight Capital and TMV, which conflicts with the investor list given in the company's own de-stealth release and in citybiz coverage; team-credential statistics also differ between the website (40+ FDA-approved medicines, 270 patents) and the January 2025 release (36 FDA-approved medicines, 200+ clinical programs).
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources β announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed β not independently audited.
Competitors Β· 3
by search overlap
Companies competing with General Proximity for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline Β· 13
launches, deals, and filingsFreeMind Investments and Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. invested in General Proximity; the announcement cited interest in a potential future strategic collaboration with Daewoong.
Strategic multi-target collaboration with Daiichi Sankyo (TSE: 4568), via the Daiichi Sankyo Research Institute in Boston, to apply the OmniTAC platform to oncology programs of interest to Daiichi Sankyo.
Dr. Margaret Dugan, a clinical oncology drug development expert with 30+ years of experience including work on Femara and Ceritinib approvals, joined the scientific advisory board.
General Proximity is working with AWS and ARPA-H, using AWS HealthOmics and high-performance computing for cancer research.
The company secured five 'Golden Ticket' awards from major pharma pitch competitions (AbbVie, Servier, Astellas, Ono, Bristol-Myers Squibb) and a spot in Johnson & Johnson's JLABS incubator.
The company announced its exit from stealth, unveiling the OmniTAC induced-proximity platform and $16 million raised to develop treatments for cancer, cardiometabolic disease, neurodegeneration and longevity.
$16M source β
Axios exclusively reported an $8 million seed round for the drug discovery platform company.
$8M source β
General Proximity was named one of 24 awardees of the ARPA-H Sprint for Women's Health, receiving $3M to develop its main program.
$3M source β
Andy Crew, former CTO of Arvinas and Siduma Therapeutics, joined the scientific advisory board.
Scott Forrest, Chief Business Officer at Shoreline Therapeutics, joined the strategic advisory board.
Steve W. Djuric, former VP of Discovery Chemistry and Technology at AbbVie, joined as an advisor.
Gondi Kumar, previously SVP of Nonclinical R&D at Bristol Myers Squibb, joined the clinical advisory board, adding DMPK expertise.
General Proximity received a ~$400K NIH National Cancer Institute SBIR Phase I grant to develop treatments targeting triple-negative breast cancer.
$400K source β
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
βΈResearch sources Β· 8
primary sources listed
- General Proximitygeneralproximity.bio Β· web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does General Proximity do?
- Seed-stage San Francisco biotech building the OmniTAC induced-proximity discovery platform to drug 'undruggable' proteins.
- Who founded General Proximity?
- General Proximity was founded by Armand Cognetta.
- Who are General Proximity's investors?
- General Proximity's investors include Y Combinator, age1, Felicis Ventures, Modi Ventures.
- Where is General Proximity headquartered?
- General Proximity is headquartered in San Francisco, US.