Pepper Bio wants to reduce those costs by getting drug developers to the right targets faster, using what it calls a "transomics" approach. Pepper Bio also looks at protein phosphorylation, an indication of how and when proteins are active. Pepper Bio CEO Jon Hu said working with Merck gave the startup insight into the needs of the pharma firms to which Pepper Bio hopes to sell its software. "It allows us to understand, truthfully, what drug developers are struggling with," he said. Here's the 20-slide pitch deck that got Pepper Bio $6.5 million in seed funding.

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Persons: Pepper, Pepper Bio's cofounders, Jon Hu Organizations: Business, NFX, Silverton Partners, Mana Ventures, Tensility Ventures, VSC Ventures, Merck, Merck Digital Sciences, pharma