A world where everyrare disease has astandard of care
Over 300 million people suffer from a rare disease—half are children. Across 10,000+ rare diseases, 95% have no approved treatment. Why? Drug development can take a decade and cost billions, making small patient populations hard to prioritize. But what if the answer is hiding in plain sight?
Team
Drug development experience. Rare-disease expertise.
Nick Jiang, MEng, MBA
Chief Executive Officer
Nick built Starfish's system to identify overlooked therapeutic opportunities in rare diseases. Trained as an engineer, he began his career at the U.S. Department of Defense, developing systems to extract meaningful signals from complex, noisy data. He spent the next 15+ years building tech companies before bringing that same systems-driven approach to rare disease. Today, he leads a team purpose-built to turn those opportunities into medicines.
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Sami Karaborni, PhD
Chief Science Officer
Dr. Karaborni brings 30+ years in drug development, contributing to 100+ INDs and seven NDAs that led to the approval of seven medicines. He specializes in formulation and CMC—creating effective, convenient therapies by optimizing drug delivery, absorption, and dosing. He co-founded IHP Therapeutics, working on IHP-102 for sickle cell disease, a rare blood disorder. He held senior formulation and development roles at Merck and XenoPort.
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Lina Yao, MD, PhD
Senior Advisor, Drug Development
Dr. Yao has 20+ years advancing drugs into clinical development, including in rare diseases. As Sr. Director of Biology at Gilead, she led 30 scientists; her work on ambrisentan/tadalafil supported FDA approval of therapy for PAH, a rare pulmonary vascular disease. She co-founded Teon Therapeutics and was an Asst. Professor at UC San Francisco.
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Peter Fan, PhD
SVP, Biology & Translational Sciences
Dr. Fan brings decades of drug R&D experience, with expertise in translational pharmacology (PK/PD, biomarker development, patient selection). His work bridges disease biology and clinical trials, helping de-risk drug candidates through biological, mechanistic, and translational evaluation. At Gilead, he contributed to ambrisentan/tadalafil for PAH, a rare pulmonary vascular disease.
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