After selling his last company for nearly $11 billion, Mark McKenna is back with $400 million and a bold mission: to create breakthrough therapies for diseases that affect millions worldwide.
Less than nine months after Merck acquired his company Prometheus Biosciences for $10.8 billion in June 2023, McKenna was already planning his next venture. From a beach in Mexico, he began assembling his team for Mirador Therapeutics, a San Diego-based precision medicine startup. By March 2024, Mirador launched with $400 million in Series A funding, one of the largest biotech financings of the year. Its name, Spanish for “viewpoint,” reflects McKenna’s belief that his team has a unique vantage point in developing next-generation treatments for immune and fibrotic diseases.
The Problem: A $170 Billion Market Hungry for Innovation
Immune-mediated inflammatory diseases affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide, causing conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, and lupus. The global market for these treatments is projected to reach $170 billion by 2033, yet many patients still face limited options, harsh side effects, or therapies that lose effectiveness.
“The industry has only scratched the surface of combining human genetics and machine learning to develop precision therapies,” McKenna says. Mirador’s mission is to change that by targeting the specific immune pathways driving disease rather than suppressing the entire immune system.
The Team: Proven Winners Reunited
Mirador’s strength lies in its people. McKenna reunited several key executives from Prometheus, including Olivier Laurent, now Chief Scientific Officer, and veterans like Allison Luo, Tim Andrews, and Jordan Zwick. This is a team that already built and sold a company for billions and knows how to move fast in biotech.
ARCH Venture Partners led the round, joined by OrbiMed, Fidelity, Sanofi Ventures, Point72, and others. ARCH’s Kristina Burow calls it “a team with an outstanding track record in precision immunology.” In an industry where execution is everything, experience like this matters.
The Technology: Mining Genetic Gold
At Mirador’s core is Mirador360, a proprietary platform combining human genetics with advanced data science. It analyzes millions of molecular profiles to identify genetic links to immune-fibrotic diseases, revealing novel drug targets and potential combination therapies.
By grounding its research in genetic evidence, Mirador can reduce risk and cost before entering clinical trials. The company strengthened its data capabilities through a 2024 partnership with 23andMe, gaining access to one of the world’s largest genetic databases. “This partnership will accelerate our progress,” McKenna said.
The Strategy: Building for 2030
McKenna isn’t chasing short-term gains. “We’re figuring out where the puck will be in 2030, not where it is today,” he says.
Mirador follows a dual-track strategy: developing its own pipeline of novel therapies while evaluating acquisitions of promising assets. The company is advancing five to six programs toward clinical trials, focused on inflammatory diseases of the gut, lung, and skin. It remains modality-agnostic, open to biologics or new therapeutic approaches if the science supports them.
The Market Timing: Why Now
After two tough years, biotech funding rebounded in 2025, with venture investments surpassing $250 billion globally, heavily favoring AI-driven healthcare. Precision immunology, validated by Merck’s Prometheus deal and similar acquisitions by Roche and Sanofi, is now one of biotech’s hottest areas.
Autoimmune diseases affect 23.5 million Americans, and the market for related treatments is expected to hit $226 billion by 2035. For Mirador armed with capital, data, and a seasoned team the timing couldn’t be better.
The Competition: Standing Out in a Crowded Field
Mirador competes with giants like AbbVie, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, and Pfizer, as well as startups chasing precision approaches. McKenna acknowledges the challenge but believes Mirador’s genetic validation strategy and execution speed give it an advantage.
Merck’s Prometheus acquisition proved that Big Pharma prefers to buy de-risked science rather than build it. If Mirador replicates that model, it could become a prime acquisition target or a company that redefines immune medicine on its own.
Financial Discipline and Focus
Despite its $400 million war chest, McKenna stresses financial discipline. “The goal is to make every dollar of R&D productive,” he says. Mirador aims to file its first IND applications by late 2025, moving at least one program into clinical trials. For now, 2025 is “a year of execution.”
The Vision: Precision Medicine for Immune Diseases
Mirador’s ambition goes beyond profit. McKenna wants to do for immune disorders what precision medicine did for cancer match therapies to the exact biology of each patient.
“At Mirador, we envision a new era of precision medicine driven by speed and superior accuracy,” McKenna says. “With our proven team, world-class investors, and data-driven approach, we aim to create a leading company at scale.”
The journey is far from over. But if Mirador succeeds, it could redefine immune medicine and bring hope to millions of patients worldwide. For McKenna, it’s not just a second act, it’s the continuation of an unfinished story.
