Our Founding Story

Kolin C. Hribar, PhD, founded Cypre in 2016 on the premise that cancer drug discovery pharmacology was broken and we needed more relevant, human-translatable models to advance drug candidates to the clinic. With a bioengineering background from UC San Diego and the University of Pennsylvania and a passion for rapid innovation in cancer research, he built the first iteration of Cypre’s hydrogel technology with the help of a small group of engineers and the “lean startup” mindset. In 2018-2019, Cypre secured its first pharmaceutical collaborations including with Genentech (which culminated in an oral presentation at AACR). Cypre entered into a new phase of commercialization when partnering with Charles River Laboratories in 2021 to offer a market-leading 3D patient-derived tumor model screening service. With an exceptional dataset and client base, and the passing of the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, Cypre is poised to accelerate cancer drug discovery and support our partners in driving more effective therapies to patients.