CORE Biomedicine

About CORE Biomedicine

CORE Biomedicine, Inc. is a biotechnology startup developing therapies that target the core lineage pathways that tumors depend on, moving beyond genomic alterations alone. The company was established in March 2025 as a biotech startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with investment from UTokyo Innovation Platform Co., Ltd. (UTokyo IPC). The founding team includes CEO Ping Zhu, PhD, BM; President & CSO Guozhu Zheng, PhD; CMO Tarek Sahmoud, MD/PhD; and Head of Business Development and Operations Douglas McMillin, PhD. Another founder listed is Xuesong Zhao from Harvard Medical School.

The company's approach, described as "Precision Medicine 2.0," integrates traditional precision medicine with a deep understanding of cell signaling and differentiation to serve larger patient populations that have been historically underserved. CORE Biomedicine's lineage therapy-based drug discovery platform aims to deliver a sustainable pipeline of first-in-class targets and medicines. Their lead program focuses on inhibiting a transcription factor for luminal cancers such as bladder, pancreatic, gastric, and colorectal tumors, which are often immune-cold and do not respond well to immunotherapy. This approach is intended to be effective as a single agent or in combination therapies, targeting larger patient groups beyond those with specific genetic mutations.

The company's business model is centered on asset creation and out-licensing. They use their platform to create a pipeline of proprietary assets, and once a scientific proof-of-concept is established, the asset can be licensed to a biopharmaceutical company for further development and commercialization. CORE's pipeline includes a first-in-class program for oncology (UCa, GI) and potentially obesity/NASH, another for oncology (AML, MPN) and Neuro/CVM, and a potential best-in-class program for prostate cancer.