Two years after selling Anadys Pharmaceuticals Inc. to Roche, Steve Worland has started a new entrepreneurial project by linking novel science with enthusiastic early-stage investors. Newly launched Effector Therapeutics Inc., a start-up that will target protein synthesis in an effort to make better cancer drugs, is the result of his feet-on-the-ground approach.
“We became aware of the science in the classic way: knocking on doors and making connections” at the University of California, San Francisco,” Effector CEO Worland said