Portrait No. 001
Tamar Grossman
CEO and Co-founder
La Jolla Labs
Raised — $4M
My career focused on delivering RNA and other modality focused therapeutics to patients with unmet medical need. I founded La Jolla Labs to address one of the most persistent inefficiencies in biotech: patients with rare diseases and serious unmet medical needs are consistently underserved, even when the underlying science exists to help them. Throughout my career, I saw promising RNA-based therapies stall—not because they lacked scientific merit, but because traditional development models were too slow, too costly, and poorly suited for small patient populations. That disconnect between scientific capability and patient access became the catalyst for founding La Jolla Labs. The turning point came as RNA therapeutics reached an inflection point, alongside rapid advances in artificial intelligence. At La Jolla Labs, we use AI-driven drug design to optimize RNA therapeutics—accelerating target selection, sequence design, and development timelines while reducing risk and cost. This combination enables a fundamentally more efficient approach to building precision medicines for rare diseases. My experience sits at the intersection of RNA science, translational development, and execution. Today, AI and RNA technologies are mature enough to be deployed in a disciplined, scalable way, creating a unique opportunity to rethink how rare disease therapeutics are developed. La Jolla Labs was built to translate AI-enabled RNA innovation into accessible, investable therapeutic programs—delivering meaningful patient impact while creating durable value for investors.
In her words
“La Jolla Labs is being built to translate scientific innovation into real-world impact, setting a new standard for accessibility, rigor, and efficiency in rare disease drug development while creating durable value for patients, partners, and investors.”
Chapter I
The toughest challenges you've faced as a founder.
As a founder, the biggest challenge has been building a company at the intersection of cutting-edge RNA science, AI-driven drug design, software tools and rare disease development. That has meant making difficult prioritization decisions with limited resources, balancing the need to move quickly with the rigor required for therapeutic credibility, and translating complex, long-term scientific value into clear, near-term milestones that investors and partners can underwrite. Navigating fundraising while staying focused on patients with unmet medical needs has also been demanding, but these challenges have shaped a disciplined, execution-driven approach to building La Jolla Labs and turning innovation into real therapeutic impact.
Chapter II
Your vision.
My vision for La Jolla Labs is to build a biotechnology company that fundamentally changes how rare disease therapies are created and delivered. By integrating AI-driven drug design with RNA therapeutics, I aim to create a faster, more precise, and more scalable development model—one that makes it possible to bring high-quality treatments to patients who have historically been overlooked. La Jolla Labs is being built to translate scientific innovation into real-world impact, setting a new standard for accessibility, rigor, and efficiency in rare disease drug development while creating durable value for patients, partners, and investors.
Chapter III
The impact you want to leave behind — for your industry, your community, and the women who come next.
The impact I want to leave behind is a biotech industry that prioritizes developing therapies for patients with unmet medical needs, especially those with rare diseases, while empowering the people building solutions for them. I want La Jolla Labs to demonstrate that AI-driven RNA therapeutics can be developed with both scientific rigor and true accessibility, setting a new standard for how rare disease medicines are brought to patients and ultimately scaled to larger indications. Beyond the science, I am committed to advancing and supporting women leaders at the highest levels of biotech, helping future women founders raise capital, lead with confidence, and build impactful companies. My hope is that the next generation will see women’s leadership, innovation, and impact as not the exception, but the norm.