Bisc Therapeutics: From Discovery to Drug in Cleveland

In biotech, breakthroughs don’t begin as companies, they begin as questions. On a rainy day at Rising Star Coffee Roasters in Cleveland, over coffee and conversation, Elizabeth Berezovsky sat down and walked me through the question that ultimately became a company. 

For Elizabeth and her co-founders, the question centered on a fundamental biological problem. What if we could stop cells from dying when they’re not supposed to? It’s a deceptively simple idea, one that sits at the intersection of aging, retinal degeneration, and chronic disease. But turning that idea into a company has been anything but simple.

From Dataset to Company

Bisc Therapeutics didn’t start with a pitch deck. It started with data. The approach builds on decades of research, including work from co-founders Shigemi Matsuyama, who has been studying the mechanisms of cell death since the 1990s, and Bill Greenlee, a medicinal chemist who advanced the drug development process.

Over the course of several years, the founding scientists worked to validate a dataset pointing to a potential way to intervene in unwanted cell death. That process, which is often invisible from the outside, was critical. As Elizabeth described it, the goal was straightforward. The team had to make sure “the dataset is real.”

Only after that scientific foundation was established did the path toward building a company begin to take shape. Elizabeth and Bisc’s fourth co-founder, Elliot Reed, a seasoned entrepreneur and life-sciences executive, were brought on board to help move from science to company. 

That journey reflects a broader reality in biotech. The distance between discovery and company formation is often longer than it appears.

A Different Approach to Cell Death

At its core, Bisc is developing a first-in-class drug designed to block specific proteins involved in unwanted cell death. The Bax inhibitor technology that is being utilized will protect retinal cells and offer a solution for those with age-related macular degeneration, inherited retinal disorders, and glaucoma.

The initial focus is on geographic atrophy, an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration that leads to progressive and irreversible vision loss in over a million older adults in the U.S. But the implications may extend beyond retinal diseases. The underlying mechanism of cell death is caused by cells overwhelmed with stress, which is shared across multiple conditions. The drug Bisc is developing has potential applications in a broad-range of age-related degenerative diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

The company is now focused on advancing its lead program toward clinical development. Early efficacy results, including studies in mice, show effectiveness in a number of different diseases. These results will help guide what comes next. It’s still early, but the scientific direction is clear.

Building in Ohio

Bisc Therapeutics is based in Cleveland, a region with deep scientific expertise and a growing number of biotech startups. Elizabeth’s path reflects the ecosystem.

After completing graduate and post-graduate training in chemistry and genetics at Harvard and the Cleveland Clinic, Elizabeth began her career in project operations at BioMotiv. From there, she moved into a leadership role as Director of Technical Operations before launching her own consulting firm, Red Oak Bio.

Through her consulting work, Elizabeth worked directly with early-stage companies and emerging technologies, advising founders as they navigated the earliest phases of company formation. Her experience spanned a range of stakeholders across the biotech ecosystem including investors, inventors, entrepreneurs, and research institutions which gave her a broader perspective on how ideas move from discovery toward commercialization.

She started Red Oak Bio with the intention of finding the right technology to build a company around. Over time, that experience deepened her focus on translational science and ultimately led her to step into her current role as CEO of Bisc Therapeutics. 

She also spent time as an Entrepreneur in Residence at General Inception, where she helped launch multiple companies. That background, moving between scientific leadership, business operations, and company building, shapes how she approaches the growth of Bisc today. Elizabeth recognizes that biotech companies aren’t built on science alone but on the constant interaction between scientific insight and business reality where in her own words she said, “Science informs business and business informs science”.

The Work of Building

Building a biotech company at this stage requires more than advancing the science, it demands the ability to make decisions in the face of uncertainty. For Elizabeth, one of the biggest surprises has been how difficult it is to fully understand the role of a CEO until you’re in it.

It’s a position that requires making decisions with incomplete information, weighing multiple perspectives, and constant communication across teams, partners, and collaborators. All while navigating the reality that progress doesn’t always move as predictably as expected. Much of the work today is focused on continuing to advance the technology while building the relationships and infrastructure needed to move the company forward.

What Comes Next

For Bisc, the focus now is on continuing to advance its lead program while building the foundation needed for long-term growth. That includes advancing development work as well as expanding the company’s network of collaborators and advisors. Like many biotech companies, the path forward is defined by a series of key scientific and developmental milestones. But the goal remains steady: to translate a scientific insight into something that can meaningfully improve patient outcomes. That sentiment is reflected in each of the four co-founders' determination and agreement to continue to have an impact through Bisc that truly helps those in need.

A Broader Perspective

Biotech companies are often described in terms of what they’re building such as drugs/therapeutics, platforms, or pipelines. But just as important is how they’re built.

The story of Bisc Therapeutics is one example of what that process looks like in practice:

• Years of experimentation and validation before formation

• Iteration between science and strategy

• The challenge of building something new within an evolving ecosystem

The experience of building Bisc Therapeutics reflects something broader about how biotech companies come to life. It’s not just through ideas, but through the people, perspectives, and decisions that shape them along the way.

It highlights the value of building teams with complementary skill sets, staying grounded in a shared mission to improve patient outcomes, and working across a diverse set of stakeholders ranging from investors and inventors to entrepreneurs and research institutions. Together, these elements form the foundation for translating scientific discovery into real-world impact.