How effective is a new drug if it can’t be safely and efficiently delivered to a patient? That’s the question scientists have been asking themselves for decades, and it’s leading to breakthrough innovations for new delivery systems. As we gear up for MassBio’s next Signature Event, The Convergence of Medical Devices & Drugs: Advances in Drug Delivery, we thought it would be interesting to look back at our MassCONNECT grads to see how they’re contributing to the advancements in drug delivery.
Remora Therapeutics
Remora Therapeutics is a preclinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel platelet-based cell therapies, co-founded by Oliver Dodd, Lauren Adelaar, and Denise Stevens out of MIT. Remora’s technology could unlock the potential of the human platelet to precisely deliver medicines across diverse therapeutic areas, improving outcomes and quality of life for patients living with a debilitating illness. Remora participated in the MassCONNECT 2017 fall cycle, and was recently award a Golden Ticket to work at LabCentral by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
PanTher Therapeutics
PanTher Therapeutics, co-founded by Laura Indolfi, David Ting and Elazer Edelman, is offering new hope to cancer patients by revolutionizing the treatment of inoperable solid tumors. Their novel delivery method potentially eliminates the toxicity and debilitating side effects that chemo agents can produce when delivered systemically through traditional IV or oral administration. By changing the route of administration to target just the tumor, PanTher is designed to increase the amount of drug reaching the intended destination with the aim to enhance therapeutic efficacy. Not only does this improve the quality of treatment for patients, it also helps to eliminate adverse outcomes that may also lower healthcare costs.
Versatope Therapeutics
Versatope Therapeutics, founded by Matthew DeLisa, PhD, Christopher Locher, PhD, and David Putnam, PhD, is changing the way vaccines and immunity enhancing therapeutics are delivered, solving problems in vaccine potency and therapeutic delivery using a “bacterial factory” nanoparticle technology. These nanoparticles have versatility in their applications and multiple epitopes can be displayed to overcome strain-specific immunity. Versatope is leveraging its technology platform as a single vaccine to protect against multiple strains of influenza (which we all know wreaked havoc this winter). The nanoparticles could also be used to display antibodies, receptors, or enzymes to further expand their application in bioremediation, diagnostics, and therapeutic delivery.
These are just a few of the MassCONNECT grads changing the future of drug delivery, but there is so much amazing innovation going on in this field that we can’t possible capture it all. If you’re interested in learning more about opportunities and advances in drug delivery, including the unique developmental and regulatory challenges these products face, the many scientific advances in the space and new opportunities for funding, join us for MassBio’s second annual Medical Device Event.