David J. Larwood, PhD

Dr. Larwood has tirelessly advanced an important antifungal drug to human-ready. This is effective against many fungi and should save tens of thousands of lives, starting with Valley Fever, an orphan disease. He improved the formulation to increase efficacy 30-fold, now finalizing preparation for Phase 2A human clinical trials. Our group is ready to drive this to commercialization quickly with focused trials in a desperate patient population, and expanding to trials in much wider indications. Dr. Larwood co-invented two later-commercial molecules before age 30. In his early PhD studies he was the first to make PEGylated lipids, later crucial in pharmaceuticals including mRNA vaccines. His law degree took him into patent law at Apple and a first successful startup, then to his second startup as General Counsel, taking Verisity public for four years to a successful sale. He completed a dual MBA in time for VFS's first STTR Grant award of ~ $1M. He was Co-PI for another $6.5M NIH support, then found foundation support to test the new formulations. He completed his 2024 UCSF PhD in AI-focused antimicrobial peptide design while running confirming animal studies for Valley Fever Solutions.