Every CRO runs cancer drug screens at 21% oxygen. Tumors live at less than 2% oxygen. iO2 Therapeutics screens where tumors actually are — finding hits the rest of the field systematically cannot see.
All solid tumors eventually become hypoxic. When oxygen runs out, tumor cells don't die — they adapt. They rewire their metabolism, activate stress-response programs spanning over 60 genes and non-coding RNAs, and in many cases enter a reversible quiescent state that makes them chemotherapy-resistant and capable of late relapse.
The NativeO₂ platform is a systems biology-driven engine that integrates hypoxia and normoxia dynamics across healthy and diseased tissues. It produces biologically orthogonal hit sets — compounds that standard discovery cannot find — and creates a durable moat through proprietary assay design, IP, and accumulated biological insight.
Every prior attempt to target hypoxia biology shares one fatal assumption: that you can identify drug candidates from outside the hypoxic environment, then rationalize their activity post-hoc. The failures were not target failures — they were execution and access failures.
Together, we can make a difference in cancer treatment. Please reach out to schedule a call