Long before Roya Khosravi-Far, PhD turned her skillset to oropharyngeal cancer, though, she was a student deeply intrigued by genetic studies and the work of DNA-legends such as Drs. Mandel, Watson, and Crick.
“I was fascinated by the power of genetics and molecular biology in solving key life sciences questions and satisfying my active, curious mind,” she recalls.
At 18, she emigrated alone to the U.S. from Iran to pursue a degree – and her journey led her to La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation (now Sanford Burnham) after graduating from Oklahoma State University.
“For graduate school, my goal was to work with Dr. Channing Der, one of the discoverers of the RAS oncogene, the oncogene found mutated in the majority of cancers,” Roya notes of her choice to attend UNC-Chapel Hill. This was followed by postdoctoral training with the late Nobel Laureate David Baltimore’s laboratory at MIT, an Assistant Professor position in Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and too many accolades and awards to fully note. Over time, she expanded her area of focus to cancer immunology, becoming a renowned expert in the field.
Not every researcher will pivot to entrepreneurship, of course. But for Dr. Khosravi-Far, it was an extension of her mission: to crack the cancer code. As part of her academic journey, she and her team developed and repurposed a new therapeutic for leukemia – achieving full remission with deathbed patients. It seemed like a landmark achievement for patient care.
However, the patients were so weakened by the toxicity of prior cancer treatments that they ended up dying not from cancer, but from chemotherapy side effects – and organ failure. It was a pivotal experience in her career: Dr. Roya turned her focus to early detection as a way to significantly improve patient outcomes from beginning to end.
Entrepreneurship: the Key to Unlocking Better Patient Care
Never the type to approach a project halfway, Dr. Roya extensively prepared for her venture into the startup world: first obtaining an executive business education from Harvard Business School, then a certificate in regulatory affairs from Northeastern, and then serving as VP of research and development at an oncology company.
In 2020, she officially launched her company Innotech Precision Medicine along with co-founders Dr. Reza Mollaaghababa, an attorney of Intellectual Property law, and physicist Richard DeVito. The team decided to first focus on oropharyngeal cancer due to its increasing prevalence and likelihood of late-stage detection.
“This cancer is difficult to detect early, and by the time it is detected through painful biopsies, it is deadly,” explains Dr. Ali Shazib, Dean of High Point University’s Workman School of Dental Medicine.
So how could the team detect early-stage oropharyngeal cancer prior to a biopsy – allowing them to save lives in the process? As it turns out, the solution was simple, elegant, and easy to test: saliva.
“Saliva is a gold biofluidic that contains various classes of disease biomarkers. While saliva is viscous and traditionally has been difficult to work with, our team and others have developed strategies to overcome this challenge,” explains Dr. Roya. “Research has shown that not just biomarkers of oral and oropharyngeal cancer, but biomarkers of other cancers and diseases of the GI tract, can be detected in saliva.”
Early detection would be a gamechanger – allowing patients to receive diagnoses well before the cancer reaches a deadly, advanced stage. And InnoTech’s saliva test looks at sets of biomarkers that indicate both predisposition to, and presence of, cancer simultaneously– an important differentiator from other tests on the market.
“If oropharyngeal cancer is detected early at stage I, there is a close to 90% 5-year survival rate,” explains Dr. Shazib.
And detection wouldn’t have to involve an additional doctor’s visit. In recent years, dentistry has evolved to encompass more than just tooth health. Visual cancer screening – such as checking for sores and lumps - is now common practice among dentists, opening the door to further routine checks, such as Innotech Precision Medicine’s solution.
“The time is ripe for the development of saliva-based diagnostics and for dental practitioners to expand their portfolio by participating in expanded disease screening as they see their patients,” advised Dr. R. “Our technology is a true platform technology with a plug-and-play chemistry that allows rapid development of disease-specific tests.”
in January of 2025, the American Dental Association, for the first time, announced dental insurance codes for cancer screening in saliva. This is an important step toward commercialization, allowing the startup to utilize existing billing methods that patients and providers are already accustomed to.
Navigating Funding and Growth: with Help From CRP
It wouldn’t be life science innovation without a few roadblocks, of course. Dr. Khosravi-Far notes that although Innotech Precision Medicine has seen many wins over the past several years – including hitting major milestones and a recent non-dilutive NIH and NSF grants totaling $2.9M – the startup has weathered the same pullback in venture funding that has impacted the industry at large, and also has dealt with built-in biases regarding the investment potential of diagnostics.
“Diagnostics will have the most impact in patient lives and screening hundreds of millions of people can generate a lot of ROI for them, but many investors prefer therapeutics that may improve overall survival by just a few months - at a very high cost to the healthcare system and with a much longer development time,” she explains.
Luckily, startups like Innotech don’t have to navigate these challenges alone. Support systems, such as the Science Center, are there to help them translate their technology to market adoption. The Science Center and Innotech Precision Medicine crossed paths in the summer of 2024, when both Dr. Khosravi-Far and Chief Operating Officer Carlos Aparicio participated in the fifth cohort of the Capital Readiness Program (CRP), a one-week intensive that prepares startups for their first round of institutional fundraising.
“[CRP] was extremely beneficial in developing our fundraising strategy and all aspects of readiness for product development, regulatory, reimbursement, legal, HIPAA compliance, and cybersecurity,” says Dr. Khosravi-Far.
One-on-one meetings with investors-in-residence and industry experts helped her and her COO prepare for their next step in seeking investment.
“This program helped us develop strategic planning and risk-mitigation strategies,” she adds. “After CRP, the Science Center helped prepare our NIH SBIR Phase II application.”
That winning application led to a $2.48M award.
What’s Next for Innotech Precision Medicine?
Thanks to the company’s NIH SBIR Phase II award, they are on track to carry out multicenter clinical trials and submit for regulator clearance of their oropharyngeal cancer adjust diagnosis by the end of 2027. By 2030, they hope to have sufficient data to submit their test for approval as a screening test.
And oropharyngeal cancer is just the beginning.
“We also plan to expand our test to other cancers that are caused by HPV, including cervical, vulvar, penal, and anal cancer,” explains Dr. Khosravi-Far. “Long-term, our goal is to develop a screening test for lung cancer, the #1 cause of cancer death, and for pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancers.”
Not everyone is well suited for this field. It can take years to move a product from research and development to commercialization, and setbacks are guaranteed to occur – this requires entrepreneurs to have not only zealous patience, but an unshakeable commitment to the mission. Luckily, that’s something Dr. Khosravi-Far has in spades.
“Through it all, I’ve held fast to a single vision: to use biomedical science to make a real difference – ease the burden of cancer and improving the lives of patients,” she says.