The human body has a tendency to get carried away. XTuit Pharmaceutical’s aim is to rein it back in.
The Waltham, Massachusetts-based startup exited stealth mode in June 2015. Armed with a $22 million Series A, it set out to unlock the pathological mechanisms within the microenvironment of cancers and fibrotic diseases.
On Wednesday — international Women’s Day — XTuit announced the hiring of Deborah Dunsire, one of the most seasoned and respected leaders in biotech and pharma.
Based on data expected in the next 4-6 months, Dunsire said the team hopes to identify the most promising combinations to move forward into the clinic.
As CEO, she brings decades of industry experience through senior roles at Novartis Oncology, Millenium Pharmaceuticals and most recently, Forum Pharmaceuticals.
Forum’s research program was ultimately defeated by schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. In mid-2016, the company dissolved and Dunsire was cut free to explore new opportunities.
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.
The decision to join XTuit came about because of the science and the people.
“It felt like I had all the right components to be able to build for the future,” Dunsire said in a phone interview. “We all know drug development is extremely challenging and I’m sure we will find unexpected things that we will have to solve. So the quality of the people within the company and the attitude and long-term focus of the investors is incredibly important.”
XTuit is by far the earliest stage company that Dunsire has joined. The IP comes from the work of its scientific cofounders Rakesh Jain, a professor of tumor biology at Harvard Medical School and a laboratory director at Massachusetts General Hospital and Ronald Evans of the Salk Institute. Robert Langer of MIT is also a scientific founder and sits on the board of directors.
XTuit CEO Deborah Dunsire
Jain’s work focused on the tumor microenvironment and its ability to facilitate tumors resistance to therapy. Evans directed his attention to some of the master regulatory switches that activate the stromal cells and drive the fibrotic process and desmoplasia in tumors.
The research team is now exploring how their research can be combined and applied to these distinct but overlapping diseases.
“I was very excited about was the science, the understanding of the biology of the microenvironment,” Dunsire said about her decision to join. “I’ve known about the ability of the microenvironment to drive disease and to impede therapy for many years. But there have not been great ways to get at it.”
Tumor cells are supported by an extracellular matrix known as the stroma. It contains connective tissue and cells that secrete different chemical signals. Some of these signals drive the division of cells in cancer or the pathological formation of fibrosis in organs such as the lungs and liver.
“We’re approaching these through the microenvironment to address master switches, which can downregulate this whole activated process, restore the stromal cells to a much more normal way of functioning and therefore reduce this excessive production of extracellular matrix,” Dunsire explained.
It’s not hard to imagine a tumor microenvironment-directed therapy being used alongside existing cancer drugs, including PD1 checkpoint inhibitors. Neither attacks the disease directly. Instead, they disarm its hiding and protection mechanisms.
Dunsire takes the top job from Alan Crane, a partner at Polaris Partners and one of the founding investors.
Photo: Olivier Le Moal, Getty Images
