Co-Founder, next generation therapeutics for Parkinson's (Open Application)

This is an open application for expressions of interest. Hiring for the role will begin next year (circa Q2 2025).

Join Us as a Founder in Residence in Pharma

We're on the lookout for entrepreneurial individuals with technical and commercial domain expertise with keen interest in founding, and building a global scale, impact driven, high growth company from ground up (full-time).

We are seeking applications from experienced industry, startup and/or new science or engineering based technology development professionals from anywhere in the world to work with us on next-generation therapeutics for Parkinson's disease.

You’ll work closely with the DSV team and the current Founder in Residence for this area to co-found and spin-out a new company. Once the new venture is incorporated with pre-seed investment from DSV, you and your co-founders will own the majority stake in the business and continue receiving support from the DSV team post-spinout.

The role is full-time, initially remote (can work from anywhere) with possible relocation once the new venture is incorporated.

The Opportunity: Next Generation Therapeutics for Parkinson's

Over 6 million individuals live with Parkinson’s today, and this number is projected to reach 12 million globally by 2040 as populations age. Whilst current therapies do offer symptomatic relief from debilitating cognitive and motor symptoms, no clinically approved drug intervenes at the root cause, meaning disease progression cannot be prevented. In addition, emerging therapeutics which show great promise in animal models often fail to translate in the clinical setting, with even the most successful clinical trials reporting incremental benefit, often capped by dose limiting toxicity.

To address this, we are partnering with Parkinson’s UK to develop precise, next-generation therapies which target true disease-modifying nodes in previously unimagined ways. As Parkinson's is a multi-pathway pathology, spanning oxidative stress, impaired autophagy, mitochondrial dysfunction, and neuroinflammation, the efficacy of single pathway approaches is constrained. Therefore, we will target master homeostatic regulators which can simultaneously correct numerous impaired pathways, changing the disease course. We believe this has the potential to transform patient lives by slowing, halting, or even reversing disease progression.

Our Approach

We’re currently building an outcomes graph, working backwards from the desired high level outcome to develop curative therapeutics for Parkinson's.

Requirements

Who Should Apply

Most suitable candidates will likely meet multiple of the following criteria:

• PhD or equivalent industry R&D know-how focused on neuroscience or a related field;
• In-depth knowledge of state-of-the-art (SOTA) technologies and constraints in neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Parkinson’s, at the cellular and molecular level;
• Broad knowledge in therapeutic development processes within biotech or pharma industries;
• Industry-specific know-how, commercial knowledge (e.g. strategic partnerships, clinical trials, regs etc.) and strong network within pharma;
• Experience in biotech, building and scaling new technologies from concept to demonstration;
• Experience in raising funds from early stage investors/VC;
• Experience in building and scaling a high-growth enterprise (leadership/c-suite roles).

Benefits

Our Offer

By joining DSV, you will be part of a team of operators who have founded companies and led the translation of science at some of the most respected universities, charities, funds, and government agencies. Here’s what we offer:

• Access to optimised, purpose-built, proprietary tools, resources, and processes to help create high-impact ventures from scratch;
• Opportunity area-specific know-how from our network of Partners and Advisors;
• Up to £250k in investment to incorporate the new venture and develop early proof-of-concept data;
• Guaranteed income of £4,166 per month paid as a consultancy fee until the company is launched and the pre-seed investment is secured;
• Majority equity stake in the new company for you and your co-founders;
• Continuous post-spinout support, including fundraising, commercial partnerships, recruitment, and team-building;
• Collaborative support from dozens of Founders currently at DSV across sectors.

About DSV

Deep Science Ventures is creating a future in which both humans and the planet can thrive.

We use our unique venture creation process to create, spin-out and invest into science companies, combining available scientific knowledge and founder-type scientists into high-impact ventures.

We operate in 4 sectors: Pharmaceuticals, Climate, Agriculture and Computation, tackling the challenges defining those areas by taking a first principles approach and partnering with leading institutions.