About Familiar

Modern medicines
for our best friends.

We work where the science is furthest ahead and the need is greatest — and we structure our partnerships so that value flows back to the human programs that made the science possible.

A woman smiling forehead-to-forehead with a golden retriever in warm autumn light.

Origin

A search for one better treatment became a platform.

In 2020, our co-founder Elizabeth received the kind of news every pet owner dreads. Her French Bulldog, Lily, had been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. As a cancer biologist who had spent her career at the frontier of human oncology, Elizabeth knew what modern targeted therapy could do. But for canine glioma, no such option existed. The standard of care hadn't changed in years.

The experience exposed something larger than one diagnosis. Companion-animal therapeutics has historically attracted a fraction of the R&D investment that human medicine commands. Yet the science is often already there — the targets validated, the mechanisms proven. What's been missing is a focused company to carry those breakthroughs across species and into the clinic.

Together with her long-time collaborator Dan Knox, Elizabeth set out to build that company. They spent more than a decade together building Science Exchange — the R&D orchestration platform used by the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, which was acquired in 2024. That experience taught them how to outsource intelligently and how to run lean, capital-efficient operations at scale.

Familiar is the application of those lessons to a problem they care about deeply: ensuring the next generation of modern medicine reaches the animals who share our lives.

Mission

Every pet deserves access to the frontier of modern medicine.

That's the belief Familiar was built around. We are building the platform — translational science, regulatory execution, and clinical delivery — to develop and scale high-impact medicines for companion animals across the indications that matter most to clinicians and the families they serve.

Our principles

What we believe.

Pets are family.

They deserve the same rate of progress that human medicine has earned.

Start with the science.

Every program begins with published, peer-reviewed human data — validated targets, proven mechanisms. Our job is translation, not discovery.

Built for the clinic.

Veterinarians decide whether modern medicine reaches the animals who need it. Everything we build starts there.

Founders

Built by operators who've done this before.

We're Elizabeth and Dan, and we've been building things together for a long time. We spent more than a decade building Science Exchange — the R&D platform that became core infrastructure for the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world — through to its acquisition in 2024. We know how to outsource intelligently, and how to use modern tools including AI, to turn complex scientific operations into focused execution.

We started Familiar because we believe the dogs and cats who share our lives deserve the same rate of medical progress that humans have earned. We're applying everything we learned at Science Exchange to a problem we care about personally — and building the company we wish had existed when our own pets needed it.

Elizabeth Iorns and Dan Knox standing side by side.

Elizabeth Iorns and Dan Knox, co-founders.

Elizabeth Iorns, PhD

Co-founder & CEO

Elizabeth leads strategy, pipeline, and scientific and clinical operations at Familiar. She is a translational scientist with deep oncology credentials — PhD in Cancer Biology from the Institute of Cancer Research, London; postdoctoral and Assistant Professor positions at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine focused on breast cancer; 60+ publications in leading journals.

She co-founded and led Science Exchange as CEO from 2011 through its acquisition in 2024, building the R&D orchestration platform used by BMS, AbbVie, Gilead, Astellas, and other top pharmaceutical companies. She has been recognized by Goldman Sachs (100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs), Nature (Ten People That Mattered in 2012), Wired (50 Women Who Are Changing The World), and as a Scrip Awards Finalist for Executive of the Year.

Dan Knox, MBA

Co-founder & COO

Dan owns operations, AI strategy, and business development at Familiar. He designs the lean, AI-enabled operating systems that allow the company to run multiple programs and revenue streams in parallel while preserving capital efficiency.

He holds an MBA from MIT Sloan, an MSc in Economics from the University of London, and a BCom (Hons) in Economics and LLB in Law from the University of Otago. He co-founded Science Exchange with Elizabeth and built the operating model that scaled the company through its acquisition.

Scientific Advisory Board

A scientific advisory board built for translation.

Familiar's scientific advisory board brings together leading veterinary specialists and translational scientists — the clinicians and researchers who shape our decisions on program selection, trial design, and indication prioritization.