The Bio Report

The problem of drug resistance isn’t limited to bacteria. It is also a growing concern with fungal species that is causing an increasing need for new agents to combat these microbes. Scynexis is developing the experimental therapy ibrexafungerp, the first of a new class of therapies for serious fungal infections. We spoke to Marco Taglietti, president and CEO of Scynexis, about the problem of drug resistant fungal infections, the company’s experimental therapy ibrexafungerp, and why it may provide a new way of treating a range of serious fungal infections.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common form of the cancer. While screening is an effective means of preventing it, many people fail to get a colonoscopy because of the invasive nature of the procedure and the preparation and sedation that goes with it. Check-Cap is a clinical-stage company developing C-Scan, the first capsule-based system for preparation-free, colorectal cancer screening. The capsule uses ultra-low dose X-ray and wireless communication technologies to generate information on the contours of the inside of the colon as it passes through it. This creates a 3D map that allows physicians to look for polyps and other abnormalities. We spoke to Alex Ovadia, CEO of Check-Cap, about colorectal cancer, why people avoid being screened as they should, and how the company’s C-scan capsule-based system works.

To see the affects of aging all you have to do is look in a mirror and watch the changes over time. Fountain Therapeutics is training its artificial intelligence platform to look at individual cells to detect changes that occur as cells get older and discover therapeutics that target underlying mechanisms of aging. The company believes this will provide new ways to target therapies to treat a range of diseases associated with aging. We spoke to John Dimos, CEO of Fountain, about the company’s AI platform, it’s approach to understanding aging at a cellular level, and how it provides new ways of discovering and developing therapeutics for diseases of aging.

The emergence of immunotherapies has represented a powerful addition to the cancer arsenal, but frequently they fail to deliver benefits to patients. Understanding what therapies will benefit which patients remains a challenge because of the complexity of the immune system. Immunai is applying artificial intelligence to map the immune system and understand its complexities at a granular level to better understand its role in health and disease. It is applying what it learns to avoid clinical trial failures, improve combinations of immunotherapies, and guiding future therapeutic development in cancer and a broad range of other conditions. We spoke to Danny Wells, scientific founder of Immunai, about the company’s efforts to map the immune system, the challenges in doing so, and how this has the potential to improve drug development.

Artificial intelligence is working its way into all aspects of pharmaceutical companies’ operations. While much attention has been given to the role these systems can play in drug discovery, IQVIA sees a significant opportunity to use them to transform the area of regulatory compliance. We spoke to Ronan Brown, senior vice president and head of IQVIA Integrated Global Compliance, about the role AI system can play in improving flagging returns on investment in R&D by allowing regulatory departments to operate more efficiently, breakdown data silos within pharmaceutical companies that hamper performance, and allow companies to focus less on rote work and more on regulatory strategies.

Delivering biologics orally rather than through injection has been an intriguing goal but has proven difficult. Most efforts have focused on finding ways to turn these large protein molecules into formulations where they would not breakdown in the along the digestive tract before they can be absorbed and provide a therapeutic benefit. Rani Therapeutics has taken an unusual tact. Rather than reconceiving the biologic, Rani has reconceived the pill itself. The company has developed what it calls a “robotic” pill that carries the therapeutic to the gut where it injects the drug into the wall of the intestines. We spoke to Mir Imran, chairman and CEO Rani Therapeutics, about how the Rani Pill delivers biologics orally, the technology underlying it, and how the company thinks about the opportunities it will pursue.

Luis Alvarez, a West Point graduate who earned a Ph.D. in bioengineering from MIT, served 20 years in the military including time as an intelligence officer in Iraq. He saw injured soldiers who doctors were able to save, only to later have their limbs amputated because of the inability for injuries to heal properly. The experience led him to develop a means of turning recombinant proteins into a form that allows them to be used as coatings that act like paint and can be applied to implants to promote growth and other benefits. We spoke to Alvarez, founder of Theradaptive, about his journey from the battlefield to the lab, how his company’s platform technology works, and the range of applications to which it may be applied.

Last month, Canadian regulators provided clearance for Appili Therapeutics to begin a phase 2 study of an approved antiviral therapy as a potential preventative treatment against COVID-19 outbreaks. The study will enroll 760 participants who are in long-term care facilities in Ontario. Though others are looking at the drug as a possible treatment for COVID-19, this is the first study to consider its potential to prevent outbreaks. We spoke to Armand Balboni, CEO of Appili, about drug, how it works, and its potential to prevent outbreaks of COVID-19 in high-risk populations.

The urgency to find treatments for the COVID-19 virus has allowed researchers to set aside institutional bureaucracy and companies to apply their technologies in new ways. One example of this is Scipher Medicine’s collaboration with Northeastern University’s Barabasi Labs, Harvard Medical School, and Network Science Institute. The company is using its artificial intelligence platform to help identify existing therapies that might be repurposed as treatments for COVID-19. We spoke to Alif Saleh, CEO of Scipher, about the collaboration, the approach Scipher is using to identify drug candidates, and how this might expand on the company’s business strategy.

As a researcher, Joe Garcia applied functional genomics to understanding genes that contribute to inflammatory disorders such as acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS. As founder and CEO of the biotech company Aqualung Therapeutics, he’s working to advance therapies to hit these novel targets to treat uncheck inflammation with the company’s lead experimental therapeutic candidate targeting ARDS. We spoke to Garcia about the company’s ARDS therapy, how it works, and why it’s a timely focus given the COVID-19 pandemic.