About

About us

Our leadership team

Card image cap

Matthew P. Blischak, JD

Chief Executive Officer

Our board of directors

Domenic Ferrante

Christian Lange (Chairman)

Chris Shumway

Jeffery Smisek

Key milestones in the field & Finch’s history

4th century

First written accounts emerge from China of therapeutic applications of microbial therapies.

1958

Ben Eiseman et al. publishes first report of four patients with pseudomembranous enterocolitis treated with microbiota transplantation.

1983

Anna Schwan et al. publishes first report of C. difficile infection treated with microbiota transplantation.

1988

Thomas Borody, founder of the Centre for Digestive Diseases in Australia, begins treating patients with microbiota transplantation and subsequently publishes 59 case reports describing the use of this novel approach for a variety of different conditions, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Borody goes on to carry out thousands of microbiota transplantations and his work will help catalyze microbiome research around the world.

1998

Thomas Borody begins to evaluate the use of microbiota transplantation for children with autism, helping to spur further research exploring the role of the microbiome in autism.

2007

The NIH launches the Human Microbiome Project to enable comprehensive characterization of the human microbiome and analysis of its role in human health and disease.

2010

Thomas Borody files for patents covering stable, orally administered microbiome therapeutics, laying the groundwork for what will become Finch’s leading intellectual property portfolio.

2011

Thomas Borody founds CIPAC, which later becomes Crestovo, to deliver a new generation of microbiome therapeutics for patients.
Alex Khoruts and Michael Sadowsky from the University of Minnesota file for patents that cover the preservation and oral delivery of complete microbiome communities, technology that Finch will later license and further develop to address conditions linked to microbiome disruption.

2012

Eric Alm from MIT publishes one of the first reports of supervised machine learning applied to the human microbiome, laying the cornerstone for the future development of Finch’s machine-learning based platform.
A group of MIT graduate students start the nation’s first public stool bank, OpenBiome, after witnessing a family friend struggle to find a safe and effective treatment for recurrent C. difficile. OpenBiome’s founders will later start Finch to further scale their efforts to harness the therapeutic potential of the microbiome.

2013

Els van Nood et al. publish first randomized controlled trial of microbiota transplantation for recurrent C. difficile. Results show a significant benefit compared to placebo, with the trial stopped early for benefit.

2014

Finch Therapeutics is formed to harness the genomic revolution and machine learning to pioneer microbiome therapeutics.

2015

Zain Kassam co-authors the publication of the first randomized controlled trial of microbiota transplantation for ulcerative colitis. This group and others demonstrate that microbiota transplantation has a significant benefit compared to placebo, paving the way for further research exploring the potential role of microbiome therapeutics in inflammatory bowel disease.

2017

Christopher Staley et al. publish positive results from an open label, Phase 1 study of CP101 for recurrent C. difficile infection.
Jim Adams, Tom Borody and other researchers co-author an open label study of microbiota transplantation for children with autism and gastrointestinal symptoms. This group and others show improvements in gastrointestinal and behavioral symptoms following microbiota transplantation, laying the groundwork for further research exploring the potential role of the microbiome in autism.
Finch merges with Crestovo to form a leading microbiome therapeutics platform.

2020

Finch reports positive topline data from its Phase 2 trial of CP101 for recurrent C. difficile, marking the first positive pivotal trial in the field with an orally administered microbiome product candidate.

2021

Finch reports positive topline data from its Phase 2 open-label trial of CP101, adding to the growing body of evidence supporting CP101 for the prevention of recurrent C. difficile in adults.

2023

Finch announces the difficult decision to discontinue its Phase 3 trial of CP101 in recurrent C. difficile infection and focus on realizing the value of its intellectual property estate and other assets.

Contact us

General inquiries:

[email protected]

Our office:

75 State Street, Suite 100 Boston MA, 02109 T: 617-229-6499