A garage-born UCSC spinout just became Santa Cruz’s fourth billion-dollar company. argenx will acquire Unnatural Products, keeping its team and lab right here as argenx’s macrocycle discovery hub.
Pop the champagne, Santa Cruz.
This morning, Unnatural Products (UNP) announced a definitive agreement to be acquired by argenx, the Nasdaq-listed global immunology company, for $550 million upfront plus milestone payments, for a total potential value of up to about $1.15 billion. Closing is expected by year-end.
Unlike many acquisitions, this one keeps the company here. UNP will continue operating from its Santa Cruz site as argenx’s dedicated macrocyclic peptide discovery hub. The jobs, the talent, and the science remain in Santa Cruz.
From Garage to Global
Cameron Pye and Joshua Schwochert founded UNP in 2016, in the final year of their Ph.D. work in Professor Scott Lokey’s lab at UC Santa Cruz. They believed the pharmaceutical industry was overlooking macrocyclic peptides, so they started the company in Schwochert’s garage.
Ten years later, UNP employs more than 50 people and has signed four major pharma partnerships in under five years, with Novartis, Merck, BridgeBio, and argenx. In 2026 alone, it closed a Novartis cardiovascular deal worth up to $1.7 billion, raised a $45 million Series B, and now has an acquisition agreement.
Pye called the deal “a tremendous milestone” and credited the team’s scientists, employees, and supporters.
Why It Matters
UNP’s platform combines AI-guided design, massively parallel synthesis, and direct-to-biology screening. The goal is to engineer drugs with the precision of biologics that patients can take as a pill. These drugs could also reach targets that conventional medicines can’t. argenx plans to pair that capability with its antibody engineering to build oral and long-acting immunology treatments.
The Unicorn Club Grows
UNP joins Joby Aviation, Looker, and Paystand as Santa Cruz’s billion-dollar companies. Each one shows that world-class companies can be built here without leaving.
Several more companies look close behind:
Heron Power is building next-generation solid-state power electronics for the grid.
Capstan Medical is developing robotics for minimally invasive heart valve replacement.
Ohalo is changing how the world breeds crops.
Biotech is one of SCW’s three strategic verticals, and today shows why. Santa Cruz has the science, the talent, and now another billion-dollar exit. Pye once called Santa Cruz an “untapped goldmine.” That description is getting harder to argue with.
Congratulations, Cameron, Josh, and the entire UNP team.
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