This audio is automatically generated. feedback.
Welcome to today’s Biotech Spotlight, a series highlighting companies creating groundbreaking technologies and products. Today, we introduce Prologue Medicines, a Flagship-backed biotech company that aims to develop new medicines using viral proteins.
focus: Lovisa Afzelius, co-founder and CEO of Prologue and origination partner parent company Flagship Pioneering;
Prologue Medicines’ Vision: The preclinical-stage company is harnessing the power of viral proteins to develop a broad pipeline of disease treatments, with an initial focus on immunology, oncology, metabolism and neurodegenerative diseases, but claims its platform has the potential to benefit virtually any disease area.
“It’s a very universal approach,” Afzelius said.
Why is this important: Companies have been using human proteins to make medicines for decades. Approximately $400 billion market Since the first recombinant protein insulin drug, Humulin, came on the market in 1982, the FDA has approved hundreds of these drugs, some of which are augmented or Replacing defective or missing proteins Something that causes disease.
Viral proteins have similar potential, with over 6 million in number. 20,000 known proteins In the human proteome.
“Viruses constantly affect humans by hijacking human proteins and incorporating them into the machinery of their own system,” Afzelius says.
By harnessing this evolutionary tactic, people may be able to change the way they think about these pathogens and use them to fight disease. Proteins evolved by viruses may not only have the same power to improve health, but they may also have other unique and desirable properties that human proteins lack, improving outcomes.
“Our vision is to identify better versions of human proteins that can probe, interact and modify human physiology in ways never before possible.”
Lovisa Afzelius
CEO and Co-Founder of Prologue Medicines
“We’ve seen time and time again (in past studies) that these viral proteins have an even bigger impact on human physiology than the human proteins,” she said. “Our vision is to identify better versions of human proteins and find ways to probe, interact and modify human physiology in ways that we haven’t had the chance or the possibility to do before.”
The rise of technology: Flagship Pioneering, a venture capital firm with over 100 ventures and 40 companies under its umbrella, including Denali Therapeutics, Foghorn Therapeutics and Sana Biotechnology, founded Prologue to mine the viral proteome. The new company emerged from stealth in early May with an initial round of funding. $50 million commitment.
The Prologue mission was made possible primarily by the emergence of new technologies, including: Alphafold,Predictive computational technology 3D Protein StructureThese include Prologue’s proprietary machine learning platform, Decoding the Evolution of Mutant Ensembles. Without these tools, Afzelius said, it would take years to study millions of viral proteins in a lab. In addition to its own drug development, the company may offer the service to other companies.
“We are open to partnering with outside parties in other disease areas where it makes sense,” Afzelius said.
The Road Ahead: The biggest challenge facing Prologue right now is choosing its path forward.
“We have a treasure trove of potential targets to go after,” Afzelius said.
From a company development perspective, the question is what to pursue for optimal growth. Having a clear direction is key, as is improving technology, Afzelius said.
“We’re constantly feeding[the platform]experimental data that we generate in-house and import from external sources,” Afzelius says. “I think we’re the only one doing this in a systematic way.”
