Reed Jobs, who lost his father Steve Jobs to cancer, has taken how to fight the disease as his life’s work, now he sees a common anti-obesity drug bringing a revolution
Jobs says the firm’s second fund has passed its $350 million target. After Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, Reed Jobs started working in cancer research laboratories and later studied pre-med at Stanford University, determined to help find better ways to combat the disease. Speaking to Fortune’s Term Sheet, Jobs mentioned that the company’s second funding round has already exceeded its target $350 million, reflecting growing investor interest in cancer-related innovation. In a recent Term Sheet interview with Fortune’s Allie Garfinkle, Jobs said he is excited about experimental cancer vaccines, but also about GLP-1 drugs, the class of medicines widely used for weight loss. His argument is that GLP-1s could help prevent cancer by cutting obesity, which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) links to a higher risk of 13 types of cancer. The CDC estimates that obesity-associated cancers make up 40 percent of all cancers diagnosed in the US each year, including colon, pancreatic, kidney and breast cancer. A 2024 study cited by Fortune found that smoking caused an estimated 19.3 percent of US cancer cases, compared with 7.6 percent linked to excess body weight.
Jobs described the medicines as some of “the most impactful drugs that we’ve ever made, according to a Fortune report. He said GLP-1s are a fantastic way for obese people to stop being obese very quickly. “The more time you spend being obese, the greater your odds of getting an obesity-related disease are,” he said.
Reed Jobs, the son of Apple founder Steve Jobs , has made the fight against cancer a central mission of his life after losing his father to pancreatic cancer. That path led him to start Yosemite, an oncology-focused venture capital firm. Now, the founder of an oncology-focused venture capital firm, he believes that a class of anti-obesity drugs known as GLP-1s could play a major role in preventing cancer and other chronic diseases. This journey eventually led Jobs to start Yosemite, which is an investment focused firm which exclusively works on oncology. He calls them among the most impactful drugs ever made. In his view, they will help people who are obese and struggling with it, and will also affect cancer, cardiovascular disease and many other conditions. Jobs compared obesity to smoking, saying the longer someone lives with either risk factor, the greater their chances of developing certain cancers.
Some scientific studies have begun to explore whether the benefits of GLP-1 drugs extend beyond weight loss. A study published in JAMA Oncology in 2025 followed more than 86,000 adults eligible for anti-obesity medications and found that patients taking GLP-1 drugs had a 17% lower risk of developing the cancers examined in the study compared with non-users. Because the human cells can always mutate and become cancerous, and he feels that total eradication is an unrealistic goal, this is.
Despite advancement in the cancer research, Jobs revealed that he does not believe that humanity will ever be able to eliminate the disease completely.
“It’s the victory over death, and that is what I want for cancer patients, and I think that that’s more achievable and more realistic,” Jobs said. Jobs pointed to growing evidence that reducing obesity may also lower cancer risk. Jobs acknowledged that the medications are not without drawbacks, including concerns about muscle loss, but argued that their emergence represents one of biotechnology’s biggest breakthroughs in recent years. However, he hopes that cancer can eventually be managed in a similar way as HIV, where the patients can live a long and healthy life with the help of ongoing treatment. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.