ARTAN Bio
$91,000 bought the first real data. Two rounds later the company runs out of ARK Invest's lab in Florida.
Michael Torres and Anthony Schwartz. Suppressor tRNAs for nonsense mutations.
Michael Torres and Anthony Schwartz. Suppressor tRNAs for nonsense mutations.
The problem
A nonsense mutation puts a stop codon where it doesn't belong, and the protein never finishes.
Torres and Schwartz had a way to fix that. Engineer a tRNA that recognises the premature stop and inserts the right amino acid anyway. What they didn't have was a company, or data, or anyone willing to fund the work that would produce the data.
The raise
| Date | What happened | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 2023 | Community vote. IP-NFT minted. | $91,000 |
| Jan 2024 | Vote to tokenize the IP-NFT | |
| Jun 2024 | Crowdsale hits full target | $300,000 |
| Jun 2026 | Follow-on | $200,000 |
Five million tokens minted against the IP-NFT. A fifth of supply sold for $300,000, which valued the tokenized IP at $1.5 million.
What it paid for
In-cell validation of ARTAN-102. Ribosome profiling in a cancer line carrying a nonsense mutation in a tumour suppressor gene showed protein levels coming back. Specificity beat G418, the standard comparator, without meaningful read-through at natural stop codons.
Published candidate data, 26 July 2024. Multiple suppressors working against arginine nonsense mutations.
Three named uses for the 2026 money. Animal model validation, a preclinical development candidate, IP filings.
What token holders get
A vote on the research and on how the money gets spent, across a fifth of governance.
Ownership of the IP stays with ARTAN Bio. What the community holds is a say in where it goes.
Where they are now
ARTAN Bio works out of spARK Labs by ARK Invest in St Petersburg, Florida.
Schwartz presented the platform at the NFC Summit in Lisbon on 4 June 2026.
Start a conversation
Michele Gallia, Head of Business Development