The Bio Report

Stem cell therapies represent an area of great promise for treating intractable eye diseases, but there’s growing concern about clinics that promote costly stem cell treatments that have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and have not been proven to be safe or effective. This is already a multi-billion business and researchers have found some disturbing practices that have resulted into harm to patients. We spoke to Ajay Kuriyan, assistant professor at the Flaum Eye Institute and University of Rochester Medical Center, about his research into these clinics, how they sometimes disguise their work as legitimate clinical trials, and why this represents a threat not only patients, but this emerging therapeutic area.

Say “Oklahoma” and someone might think of wheat fields, natural gas, or the wind sweepin' down the plain. Cutting edge biomedical research, though, is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Nevertheless, the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation has for more than 70 years been conducting innovative scientific work that has forged new understandings of disease and made discoveries that have led to new drugs and diagnostics. We spoke to Manu Nair, vice president of Technology Ventures for the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, about the work it does, its efforts to commercialize its discoveries, and the challenges of getting on industry’s radar when you are outsides of a major biotech center.

Recursion Pharmaceuticals is reinventing the drug discovery process by turning biology into a data science problem. The company has set an audacious goal for itself of developing 100 drugs in 10 years. Though Recursion initially focused on repurposing existing drugs to treat rare diseases, it has expanded its work into new disease areas and is looking at new chemical entities as well. We spoke to Chris Gibson, founder and CEO of Recursion, about the approach the company is taking, the challenges of mixing biologists and data scientists together, and why he’s holding fast to his goal of attaining an unparalleled level of drug development efficiency through the use of artificial intelligence.

The blood-brain barrier provides essential protection against pathogens while allowing needed oxygen and nutrients to pass. However, one challenge it presents is getting therapeutics delivered to the brain and central nervous system. Bioasis Technologies has developed a way to attach fusion proteins to drugs to allow them to pass the blood-brain barrier. We spoke to Mark Day, CEO of Bioasis, about its platform technology, what is known about it from testing to date, and the potential therapeutic implications of being able to deliver drugs systemically that can reach the central nervous system and brain.

There’s been much made of the potential of the microbiome to address disease and promote wellness. While much of the therapeutic efforts in this area have focused on the microbiome of the gut, Azitra has developed a platform for selecting bacteria native to the skin and engineering it to produce therapeutic proteins. We spoke to Travis Whitfill, chief science officer of Azitra, about the company’s platform, why it may be preferable to apply bacteria to the skin that can produce therapeutic proteins where they are needed, and why some of the biggest opportunities for the technology may be in the health and beauty markets.

Incubators and accelerators come in many flavors. Mass Innovation Labs is seeking to distinguish itself with its approach to providing research scientists with infrastructure comparable to what a discovery and development team might have at a mature pharmaceutical company. We spoke to Amrit Chaudhuri, CEO of Mass Innovation Labs, about what it does to accelerate the movement of its client companies down the path to commercialization, what its track record has been, and how it differs from the competition.

Intrexon has been at the forefront of efforts to harness biotechnology to address significant issues in health, energy, food, and environmental sustainability. The company is applying synthetic biology to a wide range of applications from halting the spread of mosquito-borne disease to preventing apples from browning. We spoke to Tom Schrader, vice president of communications and strategy for Intrexon, about the company’s use of acquisitions and collaborations, the challenge the industry has faced in scaling production to commercial scale, and why synthetic biology will have implications for industries not traditionally thought of using biotechnology.

The field of behavioral economics is premised on the fact that people are irrational. By harnessing tools, such as incentives, healthcare providers and drugmakers are trying to change patient behavior as a way to improve outcomes and keep people heathy. Susan Garfield, principal in the life sciences practice of EY, discussed the opportunities for the application of behavioral economics in the healthcare realm, the role digital technologies can play in enabling this approach, and what companies are doing today to move this from academic to industry practice.

Dmitry Kaminskiy does not have a lot of kind words for aging. In fact, the general partner at Deep Knowledge Ventures and managing trustee of the Biogerontology Research Foundation has called it the “ultimate evil.” As part of his ongoing war against aging the venture capitalist is offering a $1 million prize to the first person to reach the age of 123. We spoke to Kaminskiy about the longevity industry today, how a shift in medicine from treatment to prevention will alter lifespans, and what he’s trying to accomplish with his longevity prize.

Children undergoing chemotherapy often face permanent hearing loss as a result of the toxicity of these treatments. The Children’s Cause for Cancer Advocacy is organizing a Patient Focused Drug Development meeting with the FDA in September in the hopes of getting the agency to put greater consideration into the harmful effects these drugs can have and what it means for patients to lose their hearing. We spoke to Nawal Ouzren, CEO of Sensorion, which will participate in the FDA meeting and is developing a treatment for sudden hearing loss that may be able to help these patients. We spoke to Ouzren about the problem of hearing loss for children receiving chemotherapy, why regulators and others may dismiss it as an unfortunate price to pay for a life-saving treatment, and how Sensorion’s experimental drug may help prevent these children from going deaf.