The DeSci value chain in 2025
I wrote a post last year laying out the DeSci value chain as I saw it. At the time I had broken it down into 3 core components: funding, research and publishing. I’d now add a fourth component: commercialization. DeSci is ultimately about bringing new drugs to market in a faster and cheaper way. Consequently, one of the space’s core measures of success is the number of new drugs created.
The first drug developed entirely in DeSci was recently brought to commercialization. In light of this and everything else that happened across the space since last year, I wanted to write an updated post on the DeSci value chain.
Funding
Scientific research at the earliest stages remains underfunded. This is due to a variety of reasons that all converge on misaligned incentives.
DeSci opens the door for citizen funded research at scale. A way for patients, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors to all fund the research they want to see in the world, and to benefit from the upside.
BioDAOs are the main vehicle of DeSci through which funding is channeled into science. I’ve written about BioDAOs many times before, but if I had to distill what they are down to their essence, it is that they are patient-owned online organizations that fund, develop and commercialize IP.
There are now many more BioDAOs than last year. Chief reason for this is the expansion of Bio, which is a launchpad for BioDAOs that helps get them off the ground through technical, legal and fundraising support. Some of the recent BioDAO launches include Long Covid Labs, Curetopia and Quantum Biology DAO.
Molecule, which spun out Bio, continues to provide infrastructure including IP-NFTs and IPTs. Additionally, Molecule developed two more pieces of funding infrastructure.
The first is Catalyst, a crowd funding platform that allows anyone to invest small amounts into specific research. The investment does not come with any commercial upside, but can be viewed as a Kickstarter-like commitment to scientific research.
The second is pump.science, which is a memecoin launchpad modeled after pump.fun. Pump.science enables researchers to launch their own memecoins and use potential price appreciation and trading fees to fund scientific experiments.
There’s a lot I find unappealing about memecoins but I do think that the genie is out of the bottle and that they are here to stay. Plenty of people have used memecoins as a grift, but they can also be used for good, as Siqi Chen’s story shows.
I think that new crypto native mechanisms that manage to get people excited about investing into science are worth pursuing. As with any new technology, some will use it with bad intentions. However many others will use it for good and we should focus on supporting those efforts.
Execution
Core to DeSci is the belief that anyone, provided they have the knowledge and motivation, can contribute to scientific research. It’s a meritocratic way of doing science that runs counter to the current system that is based on credentialism. DeSci pushes research to the edges where research is conducted outside the confines of academia and other traditional settings.
HairDAO is an example of this in practice. In addition to the full time team, there’s a group of 15 anonymous / pseudonymous researchers in the HairDAO Discord that actively ideate, design and evaluate studies. One study which is currently being conducted at Imperial College in London was designed by an anonymous researcher in the Discord. Additionally, HairDAO recently established its own lab in NYC where it can now fully run its studies independently.
Initiatives like Infinita and VivaCity take the concept of pushing research to the edges a step further by creating entirely new jurisdictions designed to accelerate scientific progress. These communities aim to provide reduced regulatory barriers, enabling faster development and approval of new drugs.
On the software side, companies like Causality Network, Coordination Network and LabDAO are building new tools for DeSci. I posed the question last year whether new tools actually need to emerge that are specifically designed for DeSci. The jury is still out but my hunch is that as research is pushed to the edges, new tools that facilitate that way of doing research will emerge.
Connecting patient data with researchers remains an unsolved challenge. Pharma companies spend billions on data for R&D but still struggle due to a fragmented and opaque market. Projects like Data Lake, Welshare (medical data) and Aminochain (bio samples) aim to fix this by creating marketplaces that connect data suppliers with data consumers. Patients gain ownership and compensation, while researchers access the data they need. Numerous non-web3 attempts to build similar solutions have failed—the question is whether web3-enabled products can succeed.
Publishing
The publishing of scientific research is controlled by a few dominant journals that determine what gets published. This oligopolistic market structure creates misaligned incentives, as researchers tailor their work to maximize the chances of getting published rather than advancing science, which can be at odds with each other. Since journals rarely publish negative results, researchers skew findings to ensure they get published. This practice has directly contributed to the replication crisis, which is the widespread failure of scientific studies to be reproduced.
There are a couple companies working to change that, most notably ResearchHub and DeSci Labs. These companies are open platforms for researchers to publish their research onchain.
When research is brought onchain, we get a scientific system that mirrors DeFi in its composability. What I mean by that is similarly to how in DeFi developers can build on other DeFi protocols, the same can happen in science - research builds on top of each other. Citations in scientific papers become function calls that link back to the original piece of data or research.
Additionally, tools like Yesnoerror provide an alternative to human peer reviewers, using AI to scan over research papers for errors.
Ultimately, the biggest barrier to onchain publishing taking off isn’t technical, it’s social. The existing publications carry a lot of weight. Getting published by Nature can serve as a catalyst for a researcher’s career, unlocking funding opportunities and increasing tenure prospects at a university. The key challenge for onchain publishing is finding a way to shift the next generation of researchers away from traditional journals and their reputation systems.
Commercialization
Earlier this year, HairDAO successfully launched the first DeSci drug with its repurposed T3 treatment. The entire process from initial research to commercialization took 18 months and cost $140k. As a broad comparison, it takes traditional pharmaceutical companies several years and hundreds of millions of dollars to repurpose drugs.
HairDAO also developed its own shampoo line, Follicool, and established its own telehealth, Anagen, through which it sells its products.
Pump.Science also set up its own online store at shop.pump.science where consumers can purchase its supplements.
I’d like to see more drugs and other products here, but part of the reason for the lack of commercialization so far is the nature of the industry. Conducting initial studies, translating findings into a drug, running clinical trials, and building distribution channels all require time.
To accelerate the process, HairDAO follows two parallel tracks: repurposing existing drugs and developing entirely new ones. The advantage of repurposing FDA-approved drugs is that they can be sold off-label without requiring new clinical trials, significantly reducing both costs and time to market. I think that strategy of pursuing quick but still potentially significant wins, and going for the blockbuster new treatments makes a lot of sense.
Where are we now in 2025?
Most of the focus has so far been centered on the funding portion of the value chain. That’s not a surprise - a lack of funding is the most immediate problem in the sciences that DeSci can address. Now with increased funding, we should start seeing results. DeSci’s measure of success, like with any technology, is the ability to do more with less.
Can DeSci bring new drugs to market in a faster and cheaper way? There are some promising, early signs, but we need a lot more to come.