Biotechnology · Precision oncology
Notable Labs
A blood cancer company that screened drugs against a patient’s own cells to predict who would respond, in-licensed a shelved Boehringer Ingelheim compound, reached Nasdaq by reverse merger in October 2023, and filed for Chapter 7 twelve months later.
A plastic box of his father’s cells
In March 2015 a TechCrunch reporter walked through a shared Bay Area laboratory with a former hedge fund analyst named Matt De Silva. He opened a refrigerator and pulled out a clear container of red liquid about the size of a sandwich case.
“See those tiny, floating specs in the liquid? Those are my dad’s tumor cells,” he told her.
De Silva was at Thiel Capital in the autumn of 2013 when his father was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme. The prognosis was three to six months even with chemotherapy and radiation. The idea from his reading was simple to say and hard to do: take the patient’s own living cancer cells, throw hundreds of approved drugs and combinations at them, and see what kills the cancer while sparing healthy cells.
He quit finance and founded Notable Labs in 2014 with a friend, Pete Quinzio. His father died in late February 2015, fifteen months after diagnosis, a week and a half before that laboratory tour. Notable never found a combination in time.
Why anyone would try this
Conventional precision oncology reads a tumour’s genes and infers what should work. Functional testing, which is what Notable did, skips the inference and runs the experiment on live cells. The company argued the difference mattered most where genetics had least to offer.
It settled on blood cancers because blood is easy to draw, then narrowed to the hardest corner of that field. Relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukaemia, the company wrote in February 2024, carries typical treatment response rates of 15 percent and a median survival of six months or less. Bone marrow transplant is the only curative option and most patients are too sick for it.
The money followed: a $14.8 million Series A in August 2017, then a $40 million Series B in July 2019 co-led by B Capital Group and LifeForce Capital, which De Silva told reporters brought the total past $55 million.
From diagnostics to drugs
Selling a test is a hard business. Owning a drug the test can select patients for is a different one, and in 2021 Notable made that turn. It hired Thomas A. Bock as chief executive, and on October 8, 2021 signed an exclusive worldwide licence with Oncoheroes Biosciences for volasertib, an inhibitor of polo-like kinase 1 that Boehringer Ingelheim had developed and abandoned.
The strategy was stated plainly in the annual report: in-license assets, often shelved ones, that had already shown clinical activity in roughly 10 to 30 percent of patients, then use the platform to find that 10 to 30 percent in advance. Volasertib fit almost too neatly. In a Boehringer Phase 1/2a study of 87 AML patients, volasertib plus low dose cytarabine produced complete remission or remission with incomplete count recovery in 31.0 percent against 13.3 percent on cytarabine alone. The Phase 3 in 666 patients missed: overall response 27.7 percent against 17.1 percent, not statistically significant, with adverse events leading to death at 31.2 percent in the volasertib arm against 18.0 percent.
Notable’s answer to that safety record was specific rather than hopeful: dose by body surface area instead of a flat 350 mg, mandate infection prophylaxis, switch the partner drug to decitabine, and enroll only patients the platform predicted would respond.
Going public backwards
On February 23, 2023 Notable announced a reverse merger with VBL Therapeutics, an Israeli company trading on Nasdaq as VBLT. A syndicate including Builders VC, B Capital Group, Y Combinator, First Round Capital and Founders Fund committed $10.3 million alongside the deal.
It closed on October 16, 2023. VBL did a one-for-35 reverse share split, Notable holders received 0.0629 shares for each of theirs, the combined company took the Notable name, and NTBL began trading on October 17. Management said the proceeds would fund operations into 2025.
Twelve months
The first full-year report as a public company, filed April 11, 2024, carried a going concern warning and $11.8 million of cash at December 31, 2023. By April 1 cash was $8.2 million, enough to reach the fourth quarter. On July 17 Nasdaq sent a minimum bid price deficiency notice. On July 24 the FDA cleared the Phase 2 dosing plan. On August 26 Bock resigned. On September 16 a restructuring officer arrived at $900 an hour. On September 18 the board paused the Phase 2 study and cut headcount and consultants by about 65 percent. On October 13 Notable and three subsidiaries filed Chapter 7 petitions in Delaware, the entire board resigned, and Nasdaq moved to delist the next day.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Platform validation studies | Four retrospective collaborations in the 2023 annual report. Stanford, high-risk MDS, 21 patients, positive predictive value 100 percent, bootstrapped to 92 percent. MD Anderson, adult AML, 9 patients, PPV 83 percent. Washington University, 13 and 18 patients, PPV 100 percent. Texas Children’s, 13 patients. | Company-stated |
| Peer-reviewed papers | Blood Advances, June 2020, ex vivo drug screening in myeloid neoplasms. Cancers, December 2022, paediatric AML. JCO Precision Oncology, September 2023. SLAS Discovery, March 2024, synergistic combinations. | Public record |
| Fosciclopirox Phase 2a | NCT04956042, sponsored by CicloMed, terminated. 18 enrolled, 9 evaluable, none reached complete response, two had stable disease beyond four months. Notable said its blinded platform had predicted every enrolled patient would fail to respond, and called that a validation. | Public record |
| Volasertib Phase 2, as planned | Single arm, open label, volasertib plus decitabine in relapsed or refractory AML. IND in the first quarter of 2024, initiation in the second, first platform-selected patient in the fourth. | Company-stated |
| Volasertib Phase 2, as registered | No ClinicalTrials.gov registration for a Notable-sponsored volasertib study was found as of September 23, 2026. The trial was paused on September 18, 2024 before enrolment. | Not found |
| Cash runway guidance | February and October 2023 releases said proceeds would fund operations into 2025. In April 2024 the company said cash was sufficient into the fourth quarter of 2024. Chapter 7 followed on October 13, 2024. | Guidance differs from outcome |
| Ownership split at closing | Announced February 2023 as about 76 percent Notable and 24 percent VBL. The closing release said 75 and 25. The annual report states 71.9 and 28.1 after net cash adjustments. | Claim differs from filing |
| Regulatory clearances | FDA clearance to proceed with the Phase 2 dosing plan, July 24, 2024. No approved product. No PLK1 inhibitor is approved. | Public record |
| Corporate status | Chapter 7 cases 24-12336, 24-12333, 24-12334 and 24-12335, District of Delaware. Nasdaq filed Form 25-NSE on March 5, 2025. The SEC declared the June 2024 registration statement abandoned in August 2025. | Public record |
Read plainly: the platform produced real peer-reviewed science and one striking blinded result, the fosciclopirox prediction, but every positive predictive value the company published rested on a cohort you could fit in a minibus, and the trial that would have tested the thesis prospectively never enrolled a patient. The science was never falsified. It ran out of money first.
What to watch
- Where the volasertib rights went. The licence could terminate on insolvency, and Oncoheroes retained paediatric indications.
- Whether any Chapter 7 buyer acquired the platform, the automated laboratory or the patient sample dataset.
- Other PLK1 programmes. Onvansertib at Cardiff Oncology leads the competitors named in Notable’s own annual report.
- Whether functional ex vivo testing survives as a patient selection method elsewhere.
In their words
“See those tiny, floating specs in the liquid? Those are my dad’s tumor cells.”
Matt De Silva, co-founder, to TechCrunch, March 2015 · Independent
“My dad is why Notable Labs exists.”
Matt De Silva, TechCrunch, March 2015 · Independent
“Patients with aggressive cancers are in a race against time, but if we can use technology to identify the best drug or drug combination at the time of diagnosis, there is a much better chance those therapies will work.”
Matt De Silva, chief executive, VentureBeat, July 2019 · Independent
“We targeted and licensed volasertib because of its compelling performance on our Predictive Precision Medicine Platform and as an important addition to our growing clinical pipeline.”
Thomas Bock, chief executive, HIT Consultant, November 2021 · Company
“Obviously, we would have preferred observing therapeutic responses in this Phase 2a trial in heavily pretreated AML patients.”
Tammy Ham, chief executive, CicloMed, December 2023 release · Partner
“This additional validation gives us further confidence that PPMP will play a significant role in drug development.”
Joseph Wagner, chief scientific officer, December 2023 release · Company
“Notable Labs’ attempts to take a Boehringer Ingelheim cancer drug to market appear to have come to end with the oncology-focused platform company’s decision to file for bankruptcy.”
James Waldron, Fierce Biotech, October 15, 2024 · Independent
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordForm 10-K, year ended Dec 31, 2023, Notable Labs, Ltd., CIK 0001603207
- Public recordForm 10-Q, quarter ended Jun 30, 2024
- Public recordForm 8-K, streamlined operating plan
- Public recordForm 8-K, Chapter 7 petitions and board resignations
- Public recordForm 25-NSE, removal from listing
- Public recordOrder declaring registration statement abandoned
- Public recordRegistry checks for volasertib and fosciclopirox
- Public recordPubMed 32569379, 36551725, 37944074, 38101570
- IndependentYC-Backed Notable Labs Provides Personalized Testing
- IndependentNotable Labs nabs $40M Series B
- IndependentNotable raises $40 million to personalize cancer drug regimens
- IndependentNotable Labs hopes for success with Boehringer’s failed AML drug
- IndependentNotable Labs lays off 65% of workforce
- IndependentNotable Labs files for bankruptcy
- IndependentNotable Labs Launches by Acquiring Rights to Volasertib
- CompanyNotable Labs Closes Merger Transaction With VBL Therapeutics
- CompanyPPMP Predicted Fosciclopirox Trial Outcome
- CompanyNotable Labs Reports 2023 Financial Results
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
