apple Co-founder
Steve Jobsis looking to expand investments in UK healthcare startups through his oncology-focused venture capital firm to drive improved cancer treatments and early detection.
Jobs, 34, runs Yosemite, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm that manages more than $1 billion and backs companies developing cancer treatments, gene-editing technology, radiopharmaceuticals and artificial intelligence tools for health care.
Speaking at the Translational Research Summit hosted by LifeArc in London, Jobs recalled how his father’s battle with cancer influenced his focus on oncology research and investment, The Guardian reported.
“When I was a kid, I watched my dad get cancer, which unfortunately happens all the time,” Jobs said at the summit.
“It really inspired me to try and change outcomes for other people.”
Steve Jobs died in 2011 at the age of 56 after battling a rare form of pancreatic cancer.
Jobs added that Yosemite is actively exploring opportunities in the UK and meeting with pharmaceutical companies, academics and researchers as part of its international investment plans.
“As a company we invest in international companies and we are happy to look for opportunities in the UK,” he said.
Yosemite has invested in about 20 healthcare startups, including companies working on cancer vaccines, gene therapies and artificial intelligence-driven drug development. The company has also backed a number of UK companies that have yet to be publicly announced.
The business was spun out in 2023 from Emerson Collective, the investment and philanthropic organization founded by Jobs’ mother, Laurene Powell Jobs.
Yosemite is backed by several major institutions and investors, including Amgen, MIT and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Jobs said he hopes future advances in medicine will transform cancer into a disease that can be detected earlier and treated more effectively.
“Today, too many cancers are either diagnosed incidentally because there are no good early biomarkers, or they are diagnosed only when they are metastatic and extremely advanced,” he said.
“This is unacceptable.”
He also noted that immunotherapy is one of the most promising areas of cancer treatment in the coming decades.
“I think this is one of the most promising areas for patients in the next few decades,” Jobs said.