Welcome to our Featured Founder series, where you’ll meet startup founders from Tampa-St. Petersburg who are building and scaling their ventures to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges. We interviewed Javier Torres-Roca of Cvergenx, a clinical-stage precision oncology company redefining radiation therapy through the precisionRT Dose (pRTD™) platform which personalizes RT dosing based on tumor-specific biology.

Please provide a brief one-liner about your company.

Cvergenx is a clinical-stage precision oncology company redefining radiation therapy through the precisionRT Dose (pRTD™) platform which personalizes RT dosing based on tumor-specific biology.

What were you doing previously, and what inspired you to launch your company?

I am a physician/scientist in the department of radiation oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center. I’ve always been passionate about implementing innovative methods for revolutionizing radiotherapy.

What pain point is your company solving? What gets you excited to go to work every day?

Treating cancer patients more effectively with radiotherapy.

Name the biggest challenge you faced in the process of launching the company. How did you overcome it?

The greatest challenge has been developing, clinically validating, and bringing to market a novel genomics platform that fundamentally changes how radiotherapy is prescribed for cancer patients. Doing this on a limited budget required extraordinary persistence, the formation of strategic partnerships, and the ability to maximize existing scientific relationships and resources. By combining scientific rigor with resourcefulness, we were able to move from concept to near commercialization despite the constraints.

Where do you see your company headed next?

We expect to launch the first commercial product based on our genomics platform in 2026.

Give us a tactical piece of advice that you’d share with another founder just starting out.

At its core, founding a company is a creative endeavor. A successful company must have a clear purpose and deliver a product or service that truly matters to its audience. Just like in any creative field, those who bring something unique to the world hold the greatest advantage and the highest chance of success. My advice to founders is to challenge themselves to build a company that is not only purposeful but also distinct—one that stands apart through originality and vision.

Why Florida?

Florida is where I live and where I practice medicine.