Davos, Switzerland, the site of the annual World Economic Forum.
The CEO and cofounder of The One Health Company got a unique opportunity to raise the profile of her Philadelphia life science startup with an appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this month. Christina Lopes, a Young Global Leaders of WEF alumnus, was invited to attend the WEF Healthcare Steering Committee meeting there.
The One Health Company seeks to use pet dogs and cats suffering from the kinds of conditions that pharmaceutical companies are developing treatments for in humans, such as bone cancer, lymphoma, osteosarcoma, for animal trials as part of drug development. The rationale is that the canine genome more closely resembles humans than, say, the mouse genome. The company also maintains that it provides a more humane way to do animal testing than labs since the animals are cared for by their human “parents.” Since pet owners have a strong sense of when their pets aren’t feeling well, the idea is that they’re well positioned to observe how their pets respond to these treatments and take note of that behavior through apps provided by the startup. Pharma companies value that data to support their research and development work.
The agenda for the WEF Healthcare Steering Committee was formidable: How can the world deliver healthy lives and healthcare for 9.7 billion people by 2050? The group focused on topics such as precision medicine, affordable innovation, consumerization of health, health security and antimicrobial resistance.
In emailed responses to questions, Lopes noted that the key themes at Davos this year were the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Responsive Leadership with discussions around gender equity, inequality with technology underpinning those themes.
Facebook also spotlighted the company at Davos. Chris Norton, Facebook’s head of communications for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, interviewed Lopes about the company in a live session on the social network. You can check out the interview here.
Norton observed that everybody comes to Davos with a problem they are trying to solve. Lopes said her company sought to address two in the area of pharma R&D
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
“Today 100 million animals used in lab testing have to be tested in animals before humans. The key problem there is that the data, besides being inhumane, the data is very poor… The drugs all seem to work for animals but fail in humans.”
Lopes believes her company’s approach can improve the high failure rate for drugs. If poor performing drugs can be identified earlier, it would sharply reduce the cost of development.
“This is a central problem. It is a very central part of the value chain we’re addressing. I think we’re aligned with Davos on responsive leadership.”
Asked by Norton how the company views its mission Lopes said, “It’s really cracking some of the answers to the origins of disease, cures, and we’re gonna use the pets in order to simulate the best trial design and do what in human healthcare becomes a gridlock to our progress.”
Looking back at the WEF conference, Lopes noted in an email that not only did she feel an “immense sense of possibility and support” personally, but also for the company as innovators.
“The Davos community was really rallying behind our mission to bring better health for all — two-legged and four-legged friends alike. Everyone seems to be touched by cancer somehow and supports the move towards effective and gentler therapies which we are enabling. The Facebook interview was a more public expression of this supportive community.”
Photo: astra490, Getty Images
