Empowering Ultra-Rare Disease Patients to Pursue the Discovery of Treatments

Casey McPherson hasn’t taken a typical path to becoming a bioentrepreneur. The singer-songwriter is the frontman for Alpha Rev, an up-and-coming indie band from Austin, Texas. Rather than focus on his music career, McPherson instead put his energy into finding a treatment for his daughter Rose, who was diagnosed with an ultra-rare, neurodevelopmental condition. The issues he faced in working with academic researchers led him to co-found Everlum Bio, a rare disease lab designed to provide a range of services for ultra-rare disease patients seeking to discover treatments for their conditions. We spoke to McPherson, chief innovation officer of Everlum, about what led him to create the company, its “rare-disease-lab-as-a-service model, and how he is working to change the discovery landscape for ultra-rare disease therapies.