The $1B Biotech Hiding in a Garden

For decades, drug discovery has shifted away from nature and toward biology-first approaches. Viswa Colluru believes that shift was a catastrophic mistake. His company, Enveda Biosciences, has raised over $500 million to build a “search engine for nature’s chemistry.” The mission is personal: he grew up around his father’s pharmacy in India and later lost his mother to a treatable cancer whose medicine his family couldn’t afford. Many life-changing medicines, including morphine, aspirin, and metformin, originated in nature, but there has never been a reliable, scalable way to systematically explore its chemistry. Colluru founded Enveda in 2019 with $55,000 of his own savings to change that. The company has since identified 18 drug candidates, with three now in clinical trials. In our conversation, we explore: • Why the pharmaceutical industry abandoned nature (and why that was a massive mistake) • How Enveda built a system to decode unknown molecules in nature • The deeply personal story of his mother’s battle with leukemia and how it shaped his life’s work • Why old ideas, from immunotherapy to natural products, often hold the most latent potential • How Enveda developed 18 drug candidates for about $1 million each instead of $10-15 million • Enveda’s three leading drug candidates targeting eczema, obesity, and ulcerative colitis • Why first-in-class medicines capture the vast majority of returns in pharma • What competitive table tennis taught him about building companies Thank you to the partners who make this possible Brex: The intelligent finance platform: https://www.brex.com/mario Ahrefs Brand Radar: Find your brand in AI results: https://ahrefs.com/generalist Persona: Trusted identity verification for any use case: https://withpersona.com/generalist Transcript: https://www.generalist.com/p/the-futu... Timestamps (00:00) Introduction to Viswa Colluru (03:57) His father’s pharmacy and early exposure to Western and Ayurvedic medicine (07:06) Early pull toward technology (09:29) His mother’s leukemia diagnosis (14:24) Studying Biotechnology (16:07) Graduate school (17:55) Studying immunotherapy when it was unfashionable (24:23) Innovation vs. novelty (27:24) Lessons from table tennis (32:05) Joining Recursion (37:10) Learning urgency and courage (40:42) What launched Enveda (45:40) The limits of reductionist drug discovery (49:53) Chemistry-first approach (52:17) Raising $225K and investing $55K personally (56:04) Initial studies and targets (1:04:30) Three categories of leading drugs: Eczema, obesity, ulcerative colitis (1:13:27) Why GLP-1s are not the whole answer (1:18:27) Enveda’s long-term vision (1:21:31) Book recommendation Follow Viswa Colluru LinkedIn:   / viswacolluru   X: https://x.com/viswacolluru Resources and episode mentions —Books— • Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone: https://www.amazon.com/Hit-Refresh-Re... • The World of the Cell: https://www.amazon.com/World-Cell-7th... • String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis: A Library of America Special Publication: https://www.amazon.com/String-Theory-... • The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life: https://www.amazon.com/Vital-Question... —People— • Satya Nadella on X: https://x.com/satyanadella • Pablo Lubroth on LinkedIn:   / pablolubroth   • David Foster Wallace: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_F... • Chris Gibson on LinkedIn:   / chris-gibson-5ab66065   —Other resources— • Enveda: https://enveda.com • Chronic Myeloid Leukemia: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health... • Gleevec: https://www.novartis.com/us-en/conten... • The Moat of Low Status: https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/th... • Learn to love the Moat of Low Status: https://usefulfictions.substack.com/p... • Roger Federer vs Pete Sampras | Wimbledon 2001 fourth round | Full Match:    • Roger Federer vs Pete Sampras | Wimbledon ...  • Goliath: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath • Recursion: https://www.recursion.com • Celebrating the Departure of an Outstanding Employee (Chris Gibson’s post about Viswa):   / celebrating-the-departure-of-an-outstandin...   • Silk Road: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road ...Resources continued at: https://www.generalist.com/p/the-futu... Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].