Natural Products: Blockbuster Molecules with Limited Supply 

Humankind owes an enormous debt to nature: it has evolved complex molecules that underpin modern medicine and crop protection. Natural products enabled breakthroughs such as penicillin, ciclosporin, and widely used crop protection agents. Shaped by biology, these molecules often show potent activity that is difficult to match with human chemistry, making them a proven engine of innovation for pharma, biotech, and agribusiness. 

However, discovery is constrained: we can only use what nature has already made and what can be found and sourced reliably. As the most accessible natural products have been explored and natural resources are finite, new approaches are needed to address unmet needs in health and agribusiness. 

Myria Biosciences expands the accessible design space of natural-product-like molecules by orders of magnitude. We are a Basel-based spin-off from MPI Marburg, HIPS Saarbrücken, ETH Zurich, and Goethe University Frankfurt, with operations in Basel, Saarbrücken, and Edinburgh. Following a pre-seed round in 2024, we are raising a bridge round to be seed-ready by late 2026. 

Making Nature's Chemistry Programmable 

Myria makes nature's chemistry programmable. Instead of relying on what exists in nature, we create artificial natural products, new molecules inspired by nature's principles but generated on demand for human applications. 

How it works: We use AI to learn nature's chemical language, then reprogram the biosynthetic machinery of microbes to produce entirely new molecules. This opens access to a trillion-scale (1012) design space. While about 200,000 natural products have been discovered in nature, Myria can produce millions of artificial natural products in a single experiment. 

What we deliver: We provide virtual libraries (trillions of designs for computational screening) and physical molecules (individual compounds or focused libraries for experimental testing). Partners in pharma, biotech, and agribusiness integrate our molecules into discovery workflows. We also build a selective internal pipeline, developing proprietary drug candidates for out-licensing or acquisition. 

The result: A highly productive engine for on-demand molecules that traditional natural product discovery and conventional chemistry cannot provide. 

Market Potential: Large, Recurring Demand for Differentiated Chemistry 

Successful pharma products can generate billions in lifetime revenue, with blockbusters exceeding $1B in annual sales. In agribusiness, products can exceed $500M in annual sales. In both markets, success starts with a differentiated molecule that can be developed into a product. 

The spending behind this is massive and recurring. Large pharma R&D reached about $190B in 2024, and leading agribusiness players invest multiple billions each year. Increasingly, a meaningful share of innovation comes from external partners, startups, academic spin-offs, and specialist platforms, because it can be faster and more effective than internal-only R&D. 

This creates clear pathways for Myria to engage customers at multiple points, from library access, to funded collaborations, to later-stage partnering. Myria serves (i) pharma and biotech discovery programs across areas such as oncology, immunology, and neurology, (ii) agribusiness customers in crop protection, biostimulants, and disease resistance, and (iii) discovery partners such as CROs, screening providers, and molecule library providers. 

Business Model: Generating Near-Term Revenue and Long-Term Upside 

Myria commercializes through staged partnerships designed to generate early revenue while retaining meaningful upside when programs succeed: First, partners start with paid pilots or library access (CHF tens of thousands to low hundreds of thousands) to test fit with minimal commitment. Successful pilots expand into follow-on projects (typically hundreds of thousands CHF) to generate focused sets of related molecules around promising hits. Programs that continue to progress can move into funded collaborations (about CHF 0.2 to 2M per year), where Myria and the partner jointly advance molecules for specific applications. When programs reach later stages, agreements can include downstream participation, such as upfront payments (single-digit to low double-digit millions), development milestones (high double-digit to triple-digit millions for successful products), and royalties (typically 2 to 10% of net sales). 

In parallel, Myria builds a selective internal pipeline to create additional partnering opportunities at defined maturity points, strengthen partnering leverage, and increase strategic attractiveness for potential acquisition by pharma or agribusiness players. 

Team: Deep Scientific and Commercial Expertise 

Myria is led by Steven Schmitt (CEO), a biologist trained at ETH Zurich who developed Myria’s high-throughput screening; Kenan Bozhüyük (CSO), a bioinformatician from HIPS and specialist in NRPS/PKS engineering with multiple patents; and Irene Wüthrich (COO), a biotechnologist with a PhD from the MIT Whitehead Institute. 

The team is supported by experienced scientific and industry leadership, including Prof. Dr. Helge Bode, Director at the Max Planck Institute and a leading expert in microbial natural products; Dr. Katerina Leftheris, a drug discovery leader with 25+ years of experience and 15+ compounds advanced into clinical development; and Prof. Dr. Ralf Wagner, a biotech entrepreneur with IPO experience. 

Traction and Bridge Rationale: Proving Seed Readiness 

Since the pre-seed round in 2024, Myria has significantly de-risked its platform. We initiated a collaboration with Evotec (a leading global drug discovery partner), secured additional non-dilutive grant funding, demonstrated computer-to-compound execution, and expanded the diversity of molecules we can generate. In parallel, we see growing inbound interest from computational screening companies, library providers, and agribusiness partners. 

The bridge round is designed to close the seed-readiness gap by end-2026 through clear technical and commercial proof points. We will advance our VEGFR2 oncology program from computer designs to experimentally tested molecules with measurable activity, add N-methylation capability (a drug-like feature frequently requested by partners, especially for oral drug programs), and convert market pull into revenue by expanding the computational library and translating inbound interest into repeatable, revenue-generating projects. 

Together, these milestones provide the experimental validation and early commercial traction expected for an institutional seed round.