Altitude Lab Portfolio Companies Surpass $205 Million in Funding, Marking a New Era for Early-Stage Biotechs in Salt Lake City

SALT LAKE CITY, May 19, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Altitude Lab, the platform-first biotech-startup accelerator founded by Recursion (NASDAQ: RXRX), announced today that its portfolio companies have collectively raised more than $205 million in early-stage funding since the program's launch in 2020. The milestone reflects a portfolio of companies advancing into clinical trials, signing deals with global pharma, and commercializing platform technologies reshaping the boundaries of early-stage biotech despite this difficult funding climate.

Dr. Joshua Schiffman, CEO/Co-founder of Peel Therapeutics, credits their success to initial support from Altitude Lab, "With Altitude Lab serving as our biotech basecamp, we now have become a clinical stage biotech with encouraging initial results and multiple phase trials both in Utah and throughout the country."

2025 proved pivotal for Altitude Lab's startups, with inaugural cohort alumni Peel Therapeutics and Rebel Medicine raising Series A rounds to accelerate clinical development. These companies continue to build the backbone of Salt Lake City's maturing biotech ecosystem and define the Mountain West region on a national stage.

Portfolio Momentum & Milestones:

Peel Therapeutics: Closed a fully subscribed $20 million Series A. Lead asset PEEL-224, an optimized TOP1 inhibitor, demonstrated a 68% disease control rate with limited GI toxicity in heavily pre-treated solid tumor patients (N=47) in its Phase 1A trial. Proceeds from the Series A will support the company's ongoing Phase 1B/2 clinical development in metastatic colorectal cancer and pediatric solid tumors, as well as advance Peel’s broader oncology pipeline.

Rebel Medicine: Closed a $7.5M Series A led by Crocker Ventures and received FDA IND clearance for Alevatrix, its long-acting bupivacaine reformulation designed to provide up to 72 hours of non-opioid pain relief. Rebel is running its first-in-human Phase 2 trial evaluating Alevatrix as an opioid-sparing therapy.

Leash Bio: Signed a multi-target agreement with Monte Rosa Therapeutics to accelerate discovery of degraders for difficult-to-drug targets. Leash's platform had identified tractable material for over 500 targets prior to the partnership, enabling compounds to reach Monte Rosa's team in a fraction of the typical timeline.

Intactis Bio: Raised $250K from Nucleus Fund, post-investment from RPV, and achieved a landmark milestone: lab-grown neurons derived from iPSCs successfully demonstrated encoding and decoding of language and math operations, with continuous learning during inference, a structural advantage over GPUs.

Sethera Therapeutics: Entered award negotiations for a significant and highly competitive CDMRP Breast Cancer Research Program Breakthrough Award. Sethera continued strengthening its Scientific Advisory Board with the addition of a Nobel Laureate in Physiology and/or Medicine, joining members Jeffery W. Kelly (Scripps Research), Alexander M. Klibanov (MIT), and Dr. Robert Langer (MIT).

3Helix: Announced a partnership with BASF, successfully launching NeoHelix™ Regenerate, the first precision peptide inspired by 3Helix's proprietary collagen-hybridizing peptide (CHP) technology. In clinical studies, the ingredient demonstrated a 41% reduction in damaged collagen and a 65% increase in hyaluronic acid levels after 56 days.

Calycia Biosciences: A University of Utah spin-out and part of Altitude Lab’s new cohort, won Altitude Lab's 2026 Demo Day and secured $400,000 in pre-seed funding from University of Utah Ventures (operated by EPIC Ventures) and Cumming Foundation.

Leadership Transition

Altitude Lab has appointed Kapil Sharma as Interim Executive Director. Sharma has spent four years expanding the organization's national visibility and network of investors and strategic partners to more than 200 firms.

"Our mission remains unchanged: to build a new breed of biotech companies and a nationally interconnected ecosystem, while strengthening Salt Lake City's position as an upcoming biotech hub," said Sharma.

Chandana Haque, co-founder and former Executive Director, will continue to support the organization as a board member.

About Altitude Lab

Altitude Lab is developing a new generation of biotech founders to seed the next cycle of health care innovation. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Altitude Lab is a Recursion startup accelerator focused on launching early-stage life science companies, with an emphasis in TechBio and platform-based technology commercialization. The Recursion Charitable Foundation, DBA Altitude Lab, operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and is a large contributor to Utah's BioHive.

Learn more at altitudelab.org or connect on X and LinkedIn.

Contact Email: Info@altitudelab.org

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