Integrated Biosciences and Illumina Ventures Labs Collaborate on Novel Therapeutics Targeting the Transcriptome
BioPharm International
The partnership will create therapeutic assets and new discovery platforms and potentially reshape drug discovery.
Integrated Biosciences, a biotechnology company that uses synthetic biology and machine learning to develop next-generation therapeutics for age-related diseases, announced on May 28, 2024, that it is collaborating with Illumina Ventures Labs to create novel therapeutics targeting the transcriptome. Integrated Biosciences will integrate the company’s drug discovery engine with Illumina sequencing.
Integrated Biosciences, which is developing a portfolio of preclinical-stage assets to treat multiple age-related diseases, stated in a press release that the partnership “will generate additional therapeutic assets and new discovery platforms that hold the promise of reshaping drug discovery” (1). The partnership will include monetary and scientific support and allow Integrated Biosciences to discover and design new classes of small-molecule therapeutics that shape the transcriptomes and methylomes of cell populations. The company plans for these drug candidates to be applicable to diseases where cell state and identity are important, including diseases related to aging and development.
“All drugs act by modifying cellular components, and nucleic acids are particularly important. This partnership is a nexus to using small molecules to systematically target RNA expression and DNA modifications across cell types, such that we can control exactly how cells behave,” said Felix Wong, PhD, co-founder of Integrated Biosciences, in the press release (1). “We will generate unprecedented large-scale datasets that provide maps of cell states and how to alter them, charting the course for definitive cures for age-related diseases.”
“Illumina Ventures supports innovative companies that are pursuing breakthrough science, and our partnership with Integrated Biosciences, through our Illumina Ventures Labs, represents an investment in the intersection of healthcare, genomics, and sequencing,” said Ron Mazumder, PhD, partner at Illumina Ventures, in the release. “Integrated Biosciences is an outlier early stage company that has already pioneered breakthroughs in drug discovery. Illumina Ventures is convinced that, with our unique support and resources, Integrated Biosciences will unlock novel therapeutic candidates and modalities that bring next-generation sequencing to the forefront of drug discovery.”
Sarclisa is currently approved in more than 50 countries, including the United States and the EU, in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone for treating certain patients with relapsed refractory MM (RRMM) who have had two or more prior therapies, including lenalidomide and a proteasome inhibitor, and who progressed on last therapy. The mAb is also approved in 50 countries, including in the US, in combination with carfilzomib and dexamethasone, for treating patients with RRMM who have had one to three prior lines of therapy, and in the EU for patients with MM who have received at least one prior therapy.
Sarclisa is also in multiple ongoing Phase III clinical studies in combination with current standard treatments across different MM indications and is under investigation for treating other hematologic malignancies. According to Sanofi, the product’s safety and efficacy has not been evaluated by any regulatory authority outside of its approved indication.