Drugs That Go Where None Could Before: Mathai Mammen on The Long Run

Mathai Mammen is today’s guest on The Long Run.

Mathai is the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Parabilis Medicines. The company has a platform for making drugs that hit elusive biological targets known as drivers of disease. Parabilis attacks them with alpha-helical peptide drug candidates that can get inside cells and bind with relatively flat and smooth surfaces of proteins. It pursues these targets which conventional small molecules and biologics haven’t been able to hit.

The initial application of this technology is for a drug candidate against the beta-catenin and TCF complex. This first-of-its-kind drug candidate, zolucatetide, is being evaluated in clinical trials for desmoid tumors and a couple other rare diseases. Beta-catenin is implicated in an estimated 10 percent of all cancers, which means this drug has broad potential.

Parabilis went public earlier in 2026, raising $770 million for its drug development programs. It’s the largest IPO ever for a venture-backed biotech company. The idea is to begin with zolucatetide, but also expand Parabilis’ R&D portfolio with other alpha-helical peptides to hit historically undruggable targets that are important drivers of disease.

Mathai came to this role after a long career as a scientific entrepreneur at Theravance, followed by top leadership jobs in large pharma at Merck and Johnson & Johnson. He and his family have endured personal tragedy. That’s part of what focuses him on the human dimension of the biotech industry. Success can be defined many ways, but one clear way is by providing patients and their families more years of quality time together. 

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So far 2026 has been a year of transition for healthcare and life sciences. Over the first half of this year, the AlphaSense healthcare research team analyzed the individual stories moving the needle across the life sciences ecosystem as part of the Sector Spotlight series. They feature the high-stakes battles for new drug markets (like oral GLP-1s and targeted radioligand therapies), a resurgent biotech IPO market, and more.

Follow the sector’s key debates during 2H26 and beyond, with the latest Sector Spotlights.

 

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If you’re tired of pricing that feels like a negotiation every single time, run your bioanalysis with Dash. Visit dash.bio/pricing and see exactly how much your next bioanalysis study will cost.

 

 

Now please enjoy this conversation with Mathai Mammen on The Long Run.