The disease is or is seen binaryly: it has it or not. Biology does not work that way, of course. Years before a diagnosis, molecular changes are underway, which leads to the development and progression of a disorder. Therapeutic interventions occur after the condition has advanced, which the average may not be effective, said Scott Lipnick, co -founder and president of the Startup of Biotechnology Etiome.
Etiome takes a longer vision. The company’s platform technology characterizes a disease and its progression over time. With that idea, it develops appropriate medications for the point of a participular disease, in some cases before the symptoms are shown. The goal is to stop or simply reverse the disease.
“If we only say that this group is healthy and this group is a little sick, it creates a very bad mathematical problem,” Lipnick said. “But if we really give people the appropriate labels of how far they are in progression, how far from a diagnosis, we are really moving things to a continuous measure of progression of the disease that allows us to be much more precise.”
Etiome, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been developing its technology for the last four years. The young company emerged from Stealth Thorsday, revealing its technology along with a preclinical pipe that includes programs for liver and brain disorders.
The previous intervention concept based on an identifiable biomarker is not new. As an example, Lipnick indicates high levels or cholesterol, which is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease. It is now common to measure cholesterol in patients to measure their heart health; Patients with high risk can take medications that reduce cholesterol to avoid cardiovascular disease. What Etiome is doing is bringing this concept beyond the definition of different points of progression of the disease, which calls bioestacios.
Etiome incubated the laboratories of the creator of start -ups pioneer, the same firm whose research generated a modern messaging RNA company. Lipnick, who is also an emblematic pioneering originalation partner, said the company’s concept joined after seeing the progress of modern MNAs for infectious diseases, including its COVID-19 vaccine. The idea was to have a similar impact on chronic and progressive diseases adopting a preventive approach. But first, Etiome needed a better understanding of who is getting sick and when they get sick.
The training of Etiome followed the advances in artificial intelligence technologies and greater access to electronic health records, said Lipnick, whose experience includes work as a data scientist at Harvard and Patientslikeme, a subsidiary of the United Group. Startup technology, called temporary biodynamics, finds patterns in data. These patterns define signals that help predict change rates.
At the molecular level, technology seeks changes in protein in tissues and cells to understand how they make the transition through the stages of health and disease. Using probabilistic models to identify who gets sick and when they get sick, the technology of the supervised Etiome generates labels with a temporary component. Tagging the subgroup of patients in different biosteages offers scientists a continuous representation of a disease, Lipnick said.
Etiome focuses on the development of treatments for metabolic, neurodegenerative and autoimmune diseases, as well as before cancer. In metabolic disease, Startup is working on Biostage drugs for steatohepatitis associated with metabolic dysfunction (MASH) and non -alcoholic fatty liver disease. These disorders have clearly identifiable internships for the progression of the disease with measurable indicators as a percentage of fat, fibrosis and inflammation. The company adopts an approach similar to brain disorders. In Alzheimer’s disease, the company measures the levels of beta amyloid and tau proteins.
“There are different substations of diseases, as well as different subtypes of people who could progress in those stages differently, so ultimately allows us to say who will probably respond to the data and data of who.
Disease dependent, there could be a different medication for each bioester. As an example, Lipnick pointed to Parkinson. When this disease is diagnosed, the patient’s brain is already damaged. There may be objectives that are relevant in the first years of progression that are no longer relevant in advanced internships. That means that the treatment in the first 10 -year window of Parkinson will look different from that of a patient who has a more increasing disease load.
The Etiome approach works with many types of medications, and Lipnick said that the choice of modality will depend on the disease and bioesters. In the liver, the startup is developing small molecules. For the brain, the etioma is investigating small molecules and genetic medications. Some of the programs are being studied as independent therapies. But Lipnick said Etiome is also exploring combinations with existing therapies to potentially treat different internships of diseases simultaneously, which could a significant impact on the reversal of the disease. Combinations can sacrifice a way to develop functional abilities of an disease-disease organ, he explained.
In the longest term, Etiome aims to develop drugs for novel objectives. But since the medications are already avializable for some of the indications that Etiome is investigating, the company is exploring how its temporal approach can be applied to the already known and validated disease objectives. Etiome technology has revealed more information about when these objectives are active. That idea can help other companies. Lipnick pointed out that some programs failed because they were not evaluated in the patient population correct in the appropriate disease stage. If temporary biodynamics can identify the appropriate stage for a medication, that information can help defeat existing programs or even resurrect the bankrupt. This capacity is attracting the interest of pharmaceutical companies and Lipnick said that association discussions are ongoing.
Etiome is backed for $ 50 million in Finance of Badge, which is the usual amount that the company provides its new companies in the launch. Lipnick said it is too early to talk about when his programs could reach human evidence. Regarding the time of the launch of Etiome, Lipnick said that the association and pipeline developments that wait for this summer. The company is also preparing to demonstrate more of its technological abilities.
“We assume that people are simply different, progress at different rates and only say that it is normal humanity,” Lipnick said. “I simply do not think that is the case, and what our data shows us is that it performs a very strong source of that signal simply by observing how diseases progress molecularly and giving greater resolution to who we are.”
Photo: Malerapaso, Getty Images
