With strong ties to Genentech (an inital investor), Khepri Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of novel drugs based on proteases and protease inhibitors. Khepri's programs focus on inflammation and cancer. Initial disease targets are small cell lung cancer, asthma and diseases characterized by aberrant protease activities resulting in tissue destruction, such as rheumatoid arthritis, infectious disease and stroke. The business focus of Khepri Pharmaceuticals is to identify regulatory proteases involved in the pathogenesis of human diseases and then to rapidly develop novel therapeutics. Initial disease targets include asthma, arthritis, osteoporosis and a range of infectious diseases. In a stock deal, in 1995 the firm was merge with Arris Pharmaceutical Corporation