Celine Halioua
@celinehalioua
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Founder + CEO @loyalfordogs đ¶ Working on aging drugs! Longevity Fund, @UniofOxford health econ, @UTAustin neuroscience. Write to learn things.
Joined September 2017
Loyalâs drug for senior dog lifespan extension drug LOY-002 has completed its FDA efficacy package (RXE). We are on track to hopefully bring the first longevity drug to market *this year*. Thanks @lisabonos + @washingtonpost for the exclusive
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Trying to date SF guys in between their week-long meditation retreats, Tahoe weekends, month-long remote work sessions in SE Asia, and dopamine fasting is so much more tumultuous than any start up.
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1 - Loyal has earned what we believe is the FDAâs first-ever formal acceptance that a drug can be developed + approved for lifespan extension. 2 - We have 'technical section complete' AKA the 'does it work' data for LOY-001 - our large dog lifespan extension drug - is done.
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I kind of get "the great resignation". My dad was employee #2 at his shop, built it from scratch w/ the CEO. CEO now drives Teslas + takes huge vacations. My dad just got "promoted" to 3 weeks vacation, works every Saturday (at 64!), & makes less than Loyal's lowest paid FTE.
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We've raised another $27M! . Our goal: develop FDA-approved drugs to extend dog healthspan (quality of life) + lifespan (years of life) . Our meta-goal: dog aging learnings --> human aging drugs.
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Want to intermittent fast but struggling to commit? . Start a company.
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I've raised one of the largest seed rounds ever for a female solo founder, for a weird, moonshot company that doesn't quite fit in most VC's pre-ordained view of the world ;) . I've written a behemoth post on how this round happened, my mistakes, and - most fun - the bloopers!.
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Hit my late 20s, immediately started having lower back pain.
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My bf is very unhappy with our objectively gorgeous new dining room setup because, and I quote, âit looks like a Sand Hill Road VCâs meeting roomâ. Definitely some fundraising-related trauma to dig into there.
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OH at an SF house party: . âI just want to find a girl who doesnât know who marc andreessen isâ.
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hey guess what. we've raised another $45M to extend dog lifespan, led by Bain Capital Ventures (@kevinzhang @ChristinaPhili5 @alysaaco). bringing total $ raised since I started Loyal 4.5 years ago to $125M.
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Aubrey de Grey is a sexual predator. This is an open secret in the aging field. @LauraDeming & I are sharing our stories today so that women entering aging know this BEFORE interacting with Aubrey. Allegations include sexual harassment & abuse, including against minors.
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I cannot believe a startup bought a billboard on the 101 to advertise their⊠series A.
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I have resented my dad's boss since I was a kid, and still do today. I don't have any data to back this, but wouldn't be surprising to me if there is generational resentment from kids who grew up watching their parents in similar situations, that's rearing its head now.
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shout out to the VCs that funded the $500 gift card Brex just sent me.
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Want to know one of the reasons there are fewer female founders? Because we know we are signing ourselves up to get publicly flamed for the same shit male founders get patted on the back for. I know tweeting this puts a target on my back too, but JFC it's infuriating.
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I want Apple-style product announcement events for new breakthrough medicines.
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1.5 years into building a company and I finally understand the difference between project management, program management, and product management.
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Honestly, the only reason I want to be a billionaire is so I can work on capital-intensive problems that don't have an obvious direct ROI. Which encompasses a scary proportion of the serious problems/blockers facing bio & healthcare today.
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You know that feeling when you think back to an embarrassing memory and cringe painfully?. Well I have that every time I remember signed a 2-year $$$ office lease with a start date of March 2020.
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Building my own company has made me insatiably curious about how every other company works.
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I'm currently recruiting senior hires & one of their biggest concerns isn't salary, equity, etc - it's health insurance, & specifically continuity of care for their spouse & children. It's not appealing to "rough it" or do "start up life" when a family depends on you.
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am i the only one dumbfounded by this âmovementâ. were we not hiring for merit beforeâŠ?.
thanks to @balajis for the foresight in setting up this domain years ago, and thanks to @brian_armstrong for the original act of leadership.
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I wonder if ambitious male founders get called Travis Kalanick as often as I get called Elizabeth Holmes? đ€.
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really stressed out by how hot everyone in Miami is.
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My ridiculous seed $$ origin story: I went to an SF camping trip (where I knew no one), got drunk (because I knew no one) & started joking about how I was going to make their dogs live forever - which made its way back to a VC, who later led my seed. I miss serendipity.
Had a great discussion w/ VCs and founders today on "what's missing" in our industry due to COVID. My answer:. Serendipity. Startups thrive on a little luck and serendipity that comes from meeting perfect strangers. We need more ways to bring that back.
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booked myself a table for 1 at a cute SF restaurant to work on my board deck tonight. with a glass of champagne đ.
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My boyfriend went long during his meeting with a VC and made that VC late to his meeting with ME. Should i dump him yes or yes.
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officially 30. i started working on the ideas that became Loyal at ~23. my 20s have been dedicated to bringing Loyal from crazy idea, to almost inevitable . my bday wish: to dedicate my 30s bringing Loyal to fruition - first FDA-approved longevity drug & human drugs on the wayđ€.
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CAN SOMEONE TELL ME IF WE ACTUALLY JUST GOT A SHOUT OUT AT THE EMMYS??????
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My goal for this decade is to show significant, shocking lifespan extension w/ a drug. We need to do this in people, or an animal people care about (not mice, worms, which we have already done 1000X) if people are to truly GET that aging is able to be slowed & lifespan extended.
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Gotta love draining your savings to pay out your landlord because all your roommates left SF after COVID. I so wonderfully got stuck holding the extremely hot potato (a pre-COVID-priced SF lease) . FML. pity likes highly appreciated to take the sting off.
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me + @LauraDeming helping a co spin up COVID19 swab tests (CLIA cert'd) to 10k/day - co needs ~$800k to front load reagents + ops hire to coordinate hiring 15+ lab personnel & manage them. Bio bckgrd not necessary, SF/LA based. CDC, Quest, big dx co's failing, too slow. DM me.
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we can heal the political divide. with dog longevity drugs.
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We need volunteers to help assemble COVID-19 testing kits starting tomorrow in SF. email team@curativeinc.com if you can help.
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The first dog in our pivotal lifespan extension study STAY has been dosed - meet Boo the whippet! . The study will be over 1,000 dogs, 55 clinical sites, about 4 years --> afaik, this is one of the largest animal health clinical trials ever run, even by the pharmas (!)
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This is how long 99% of drugs take. Which. is a problem.
It's now been almost a year since the New York Times put together this technically impressive yet totally wrong interactive article about how long it would take to get a Covid vaccine.
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Iâm a pretty big elon stan but this is getting awkward.
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There is a direct correlation between the amount of money I raise and the number of SF guys hitting on me.
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how do we get more people to work on challenging + impactful problems?.
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whyyyy is the longevity field like this.
Dear humanity,. I am building a religion. Wait a second, I know what youâre going to say. Hold that knee-jerk reaction and let me explain. First, hereâs whatâs going to happen:. Donât Die becomes history's fastest-growing ideology. It saves the human race. And ushers in
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Dogs-first to extend human lifespan. Save the dogs, save the world!.
đ§”A tragedy of human-canine relations is that a 10-year-old dog is old, while a 28-year-old person is in the prime of life. A startup called Loyal is developing drugs to delay aging in dogs and extend their healthy lifespan. 1/9 đ·: @joepugliese
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Last week, Loyal received what is likely the FIRST ever FDA blessing for a clinical study to test whether an aging drug extends lifespan & healthspan. In FDA parlance - "protocol concurrence".
Given SVB failure, we won't be talking much about the FDA news today. Forbes did break it this AM but I do not think amplifying right now is smart/respectful . We'll share more hopefully next week, and we'll still talk about it on our SXSW panel it later today. Sending â€ïž.
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1:04!!!!!!.
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When I first moved to SF some guy I met on tinder brought me to his start upâs absolutely epic office warming party. Iâve been scheming to top it since. 2021 is going to be the year đ.
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Hypothesis: the big pharmas will jump into aging in the next 5 years. Some internally, and the rest will snap up aging biotechs in an effort to catch up . So now might be an especially good time start building an aging co.
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Any ideas for creative, remote-friendly team perks? we currently have a monthly $100 each learning + gym budget, want to add something useful and fun to the mix.
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my dumbest tweets (usually about boys or dogs) net me +100s of followers each time. my tweets on aging biology and building medicines. crickets. twitter evolutionary pressure.
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too many cities and lives I could see myself living.
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Miss Wolfie was diagnosed with metastatic cancer shortly after I adopted her, and last night her journey came to an end. Forever thankful for getting this time with her and for the love she received from the Loyal team & the world đ
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PSA LADIES. do not email me (or other co's) asking if the position is still open. guys almost never ask for permission to apply to a job. Yet I get this question multiple times a day from women. SEND THE RESUME!! make me want to hire you even if the original role has filled!!!.
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Had a ton of fun chatting with @ashleevance about Loyal's ideas on how to extend dog lifespan, our ~super secret~ plan to bridge dog longevity into human longevity, and our $11m seed raise to make it all happen! đ¶
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Thanks @jonstewart @TheProblem for a fun and brilliantly chaotic interview on the ideas + execution behind Loyal đ¶ .
On this weekâs podcast, we talk to @celinehalioua, Founder and CEO of Loyal â a startup with a mission to extend dogs' lifespans. Are humans next? Watch the full interview here:
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the people have spoken! . and they want. dog longevity drugs!!.
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Building a biotech company in Silicon Valley is amazing, but I quickly learned to not take common startup-isms at face value & to validate for myself that they translate over to building in bio. Many don't. Here's some differences I've noticed so far:
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HAHAH there is a drug we are looking at that significantly extends lifespan AND is an aphrodisiac . our valuation just skyrocketed.
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Day four in Miami. Developed a sudden, inexplicable desire for a yellow Lamborghini.
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Omg I was in an uber with Della and THE DRIVER ASKED ME IF I HAD HEARD ABOUT THE DOG LONGEVITY DRUGS đ đ đ.
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who are the founders building the coolest moonshot co's?. moonshot = novel, technically very difficult, and impactful if it works.
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We can't start selling the drug yet - we need to complete the safety and manufacturing technical sections - but this represents the lions share of the 'existential risk' of both the drug program, and of Loyal. AKA - we are doing it!!!.
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Nice surprise from Nasdaq! Thanks @sammarkuse . The benefits of having dog people in high places⊠đ¶
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thankful for silicon valley & the opportunity to build loyal. Nowhere else in the world would a 24 y/o nobody be given millions of dollars to build dog longevity drugs. itâs actually insane. Lots to improve in the valley, but fundamentally, we are so, so fortunate.
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Aubrey has now admitted to Laura's allegations (he denies mine, of course, since there is no proof), he has been put on admin leave from SENS, multiple speaking arrangements have been cancelled, the story has hit the mainstream press -.
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the cruel paradox of being a technical founder-CEO:. > most technical people are deeply introverted .> being a CEO is the most extroverted job ever.
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Hit a really cool milestone this week: we enrolled the first dogs in our first ever clinical aging study! . I've been thinking about how to run aging studies for years. Still can't believe we are actually DOING IT. One of hopefully many to come!.
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my childhood dog Oliver passed away today. thankful he will be immortalized, in a small way, by loyal.
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I started Loyal 4 years ago with explicit goal to get the first drug FDA approved for lifespan extension itself - no disease, just healthy, longer. We decided to start by targeting the abnormally short lifespan of large breed dogs with a drug program we code-named LOY-001.
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I've had this exact conversation at least 15X since I got here. "what brings you to SF?"."work"."oh, what do you do?"."try to make dogs live longer".". ".
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Real Q: why do SaaS co's force you to do 30 minute calls with sales reps? Is it an up selling thing?. I already know I want your product, please just take my money and leave me alone thanks.
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Three PCR machines, one 3D printer, and hundreds of test tubes & swabs on their way down to the COVID19 testing lab in LA! @FredTurnerBio @LauraDeming @mattocko @SABarclay @davidlee @du_ro @tylercowen @ShaunFromLA @joe__wilson__
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We've raised another $13M - bringing Loyal's total raised to $50M! to extend dog lifespan & healthspan. In honor of this, I wrote on why capital matters, especially when building deeply technical companies working on hard problems (such as longevity):.
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one challenge for founders that don't come from money/business is not having frameworks for the insane $ in silicon valley. our first $500K check was more money than I had ever seen/heard of in my life. all my teams' comp are higher than my fam's total income growing up.
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discipline is always putting your airpods back in their case.
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One of the reasons I fell in love with SF was because everyone is so damn smart, interesting, and ambitious. Itâs almost addictive trying to âlevel upâ among my peers. Iâve learned tons from osmosis. Does Miami have that? Not throwing shade - genuinely curious!.
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As there is no regulatory path for a lifespan extension drug, we had to design from scratch a scientifically strong + logistically feasible way to demonstrate efficacy of an aging drug. This took >4 years, resulting in the 2,300+ page technical section approved today.
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after 3.5 years of hard work, our first in-person FDA meeting! âïž
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LA is the optimal SF founder weekend spot. No one cares about your startup, no fog, everyoneâs hot, can book and cancel last minute with minimal financial repercussions, easy to convert into a work trip when the vacation guilt inevitably gets to you. A++ highly recommend
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the technical founder paradox. to have a valuable technical insight, you probably have spent many years reading/studying/generally being introverted. but executing on that insight is mostly highly extroverted work (fundraising, hiring, millionsss of meetings).
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Silicon Valley should back weird, controversial characters with weird controversial, potentially stigmatized ideas. They may be cancelled by the mainstream. SV should ignore those mobs. LaunchHouse/Neumann highlight how being unethical has become conflated with boundary pushing.
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Hypothesis: it is easier to hire all-star employees in bio than in tech. 1- No FAANG golden handcuffs. The Pharmas pretty ubiquitously suck to work at, the HQs lack the bells and whistles of tech, and pay for junior people is easily matched by a startup.
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You would not believe how many investors have passed on loyal because of market size đ . Plenty of valid reasons to pass on Loyal, especially in the early days. TAM is *not* one lmao.
This and Ozempic will be trillion dollar drugs in the next few years. Perfectly targeted at the American consumer.
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OK this is a bit embarrassing to admit. but ChatGPT is a very good executive coach.
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