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 highlights the company's lead investigational biologic candidate, CBT300, and brings renewed attention to one of oncology's most persistent challenges: why cancer returns and why treatments that initially work can eventually stop working.
The Prix Galien USA Awards recognize scientific innovation intended to improve human health. For Creative BioTherapeutics, the nomination represents external validation at a critical stage in its development and provides an opportunity to elevate the scientific conversation around drug resistance, immune evasion, and metastasis. The 20th annual awards ceremony is scheduled for October 29, 2026, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
CBT300 is being developed as a multi-cancer, platform biologic candidate intended to interfere with drug-resistance pathways, immune-evasion mechanisms, and cellular processes associated with recurrence and metastasis. The candidate 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. According to the company, preclinical safety and efficacy studies have been completed, and 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.
The company also recently received FDA feedback regarding its proposed safety program for CBT300. According to Creative BioTherapeutics, 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.
For CEO and Founder Dr. Anita Davidson, the recognition carries particular meaning because the company's work was born from years of witnessing what cancer recurrence can mean for patients and their families. "Being recognized by the Galien Foundation is deeply meaningful to us because this work has always been about the patients behind the science," said Davidson. "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."
Creative BioTherapeutics was founded by Anita Davidson and her husband, biochemist and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Don Davidson. 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. Together, those experiences led to the formation of the company and eventually to CBT300.
"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."
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. The company 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."
As the awards ceremony 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 LLC and CBT300, visit the company's website.
