Retro Biosciences

Joe Betts-LaCroix, Sheng Ding, and Matt Buckley founded Retro with the intention of building a generational pharma company proportional to the scale of their mission, to increase healthy human lifespan by ten years. It has received $180 million in investment from Sam Altman, founder of Open AI.

RTR242
RTR242 is a hitherto minimally-described small molecule autophagy inducer. Its first target indication is early-onset (i.e., genetic) Alzheimer’s disease. In September 2025, Retro CEO Betts-LaCroix told Business Insider that he expected to dose its first subject by the end of 2025, Retro will have dosed its first trial patient with RTR242.

The Phase I trial (ACTRN12625001274460) taking place in Australia, will have five arms of an initial single ascending dose (SAD) portion (6 healthy subjects aged 18-65 years receiving RTR242 and 2 receiving placebo for each dose), with doses ranging from 50 up to a maximum of 800 mg RTR242. If approved by the safety monitoring board, this will be followed by a multiple ascending dose phase with a separate cohort of subjects with a similar structure.

The primary outcomes are safety and tolerability; the secondary outcomes are pharmacokinetic.