Creative BioTherapeutics LLC, a biotechnology company developing investigational approaches to address cancer recurrence and treatment resistance, has been named a 2026 Prix Galien USA nominee in the Best Startup category. The recognition centers on the company's lead investigational biologic candidate, CBT300, which is being developed for evaluation of its potential to interfere with drug-resistance pathways, immune-evasion mechanisms and cellular processes associated with cancer recurrence and metastasis.
The Prix Galien USA Awards recognize scientific innovation intended to improve human health, and Creative BioTherapeutics joins a select group of companies under consideration for the 2026 Best Startup honor. For a company still in preclinical development, the nomination represents external validation at a critical stage and provides an opportunity to draw attention to the scientific challenge at the heart of its work: why cancer returns and why treatments that initially work can eventually stop working.
For CEO and Founder Dr. Anita Davidson, the recognition carries personal weight. "Being recognized by the Galien Foundation is deeply meaningful to us because this work has always been about the patients behind the science," Davidson said. "We have seen what recurrence and treatment resistance can do to individuals and families. CBT300 grew from a belief that we have to keep asking harder questions about why cancer returns and why treatments that initially work can eventually stop working. This nomination encourages us to continue pursuing those questions with the same urgency and responsibility that brought us here."
Creative BioTherapeutics was founded by Anita Davidson, a clinician and entrepreneur, and her husband, biochemist and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Don Davidson. Their different experiences with cancer converged around a common question: could they help develop a different approach to one of oncology's most persistent challenges? Anita's perspective was shaped by years as a clinician, including the loss of a 16-year-old patient whose cancer returned after treatment. Don brought decades of scientific experience in drug discovery and development.
The company's scientific premise focuses on the ability of some cancer cells to survive therapeutic pressure, adapt and contribute to recurrence or progression. CBT300 is being developed as a multi-cancer, platform biologic candidate intended to be evaluated for its potential to interfere with drug-resistance pathways, immune-evasion mechanisms and cellular processes associated with recurrence and metastasis.
CBT300 remains in preclinical development and has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of cancer or any other disease. The company reports that its preclinical safety and efficacy studies have been completed and that it is now preparing for commercial-scale drug production and an Investigational New Drug (IND) filing as it works toward first-in-human clinical evaluation. Creative BioTherapeutics also recently received FDA feedback regarding its proposed safety program for CBT300. According to the company, the agency agreed with its proposed approach for satisfying the remaining safety requirements needed to progress toward an IND filing. The plan uses alternative methods of safety validation in place of certain animal toxicity studies, an approach the company says will avoid approximately $1.2 million in animal-study costs while allowing it to complete the proposed safety program.
"The recognition is exciting, but it doesn't change the scientific standard we have to meet," said Dr. Don Davidson. "Our responsibility remains to follow the data, challenge our assumptions and understand the biology as completely as possible. Every step has to earn the next step. Ultimately, our objective is to build the scientific foundation necessary to determine whether CBT300 can progress responsibly toward clinical evaluation."
The nomination also creates an opportunity to bring greater attention to an issue that has driven Creative BioTherapeutics from its beginning: what happens when cancer survives treatment. While advances in oncology have transformed outcomes for many patients, recurrence and treatment resistance remain formidable challenges across numerous forms of cancer. Creative BioTherapeutics believes that understanding the mechanisms that allow malignant cells to persist, adapt and evade therapeutic and immune pressure is an important part of the search for new approaches.
"Patients don't experience cancer as a scientific abstraction," Anita Davidson said. "They experience the appointments, the treatments, the waiting, the hope that the cancer is gone and, for some, the devastation of learning that it has returned. That human reality has never left us. It is why the science matters so much."
The 20th annual Prix Galien USA Awards Ceremony is scheduled for October 29, 2026, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where this year's honorees will be recognized. As that date approaches, Creative BioTherapeutics will continue its work on CBT300 while engaging with the broader scientific, biotechnology and oncology communities around the challenges of recurrence and treatment resistance. For additional information about Creative BioTherapeutics and CBT300, visit Creative BioTherapeutics LLC.
