- Parallel Bio returns to Bay Area roots, bringing computational and biological operations under one roof
- New advisors strengthen leadership in immunology, AI, drug development and cybersecurity
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Parallel Bio, a biotech company pioneering human-first drug discovery, today announced it is centering U.S. operations at its San Francisco Bay Area headquarters in Brisbane, CA, bringing computational and biological functions together in one location.
The move builds on Parallel Bio's Bay Area foundation, as co-founders Robert DiFazio and Juliana Hilliard founded the company in San Francisco in 2021. At the time, DiFazio worked at Stanford University, directing an interdisciplinary institute of over 150 faculty studying human immunology, and Hilliard worked at Herophilus (formerly known as System1), adapting brain organoid technology for high-throughput drug discovery. The company is backed by Bay Area investors including AIX Ventures, which led Parallel Bio's $21 million Series A round; Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce; Jeff Dean, head of Google DeepMind; Y Combinator; and other biotech and deeptech funds.
Parallel Bio also announced five new advisors as the company scales its platform and partnerships across multiple therapeutic areas:
- Shane Crotty, Professor and Chief Scientific Officer at one of the world’s leading institutes of human immunology
- Ron Philip, former CEO of Orbital Therapeutics and Spark Therapeutics
- Andre Esteva, CEO and co-founder of ArteraAI
- Rick Bright, PhD, CEO of Bright Global Health and former Director of BARDA
- Jason Kichen, Chief Information Security Officer of Fluidstack and adjunct faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.
“For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has sought better ways to evaluate therapies in human biology before advancing into clinical studies. Parallel Bio is taking an important step toward addressing that challenge,” said Philip. “I joined the advisory board because I believe their platform has the potential to meaningfully improve how new medicines are developed.”
These advisors bring deep experience across the company's core focus areas including human immunology, drug development, AI for medicine, and data infrastructure, positioning Parallel Bio to lead the transformation of drug development as the industry moves beyond animal testing.
"We're fortunate to add these five exceptional advisors whose expertise will be invaluable as we scale our platform and partnerships,” said DiFazio. “Likewise, bringing our team together in the Bay Area allows us to move faster and integrate our computational and biology work more tightly."
With the move, Parallel Bio is actively recruiting scientific and engineering talent across the Bay Area. The company currently works with numerous pharmaceutical partners, including three Fortune 500 companies, who are testing more than 50 drugs and immunotherapies using Parallel Bio's organoid-based immune system modeling platform.
“The Bay Area has always been our home, and this consolidation positions us to build on that foundation," said Hilliard. "We're excited to grow our team here and continue advancing human-first drug discovery with support from some of the world's leading experts in immunology, AI, and biotech.”
About Parallel Bio
Parallel Bio is pioneering human-first drug discovery by creating the first map of human biology. The company generates data using groundbreaking biological and computational tools that track real clinical outcomes, enabling earlier, more reliable decisions about disease biology and drug discovery. The platform overcomes the core limitations of traditional animal testing, which almost always fails to predict how drugs will behave in people. Parallel Bio is building its own drug discovery pipeline in cancer and autoimmune disease while collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to evaluate therapies directly in human systems before costly and risky clinical trials. Founded in 2021 by two scientists with deep expertise in cutting-edge human models, Parallel Bio is backed by leading investors in AI and biotech, including AIX Ventures, Marc Benioff, and Jeff Dean. Learn more at parallel.bio.
Contacts
Media contact:
parallelbio@thermalpr.com
