Athelas Ltd.

Geneva-based start up Athelas Ltd. aims to develop anti-infective drugs based on new bacterial targets it discovers through its DiVi platform. The company's platform is based on the use of the amoeba as a model organism--by engineering single-gene mutant bacteria and infecting the amoebas with those bacteria, Athelas' scientists aim to identify drug targets that may be important in vivo, but that might not be found via traditional in vitro screening methods.