Much of the broader life sciences community has been waiting to see what Doug Williams (Opens in a new window) has been up to since leaving his position as R&D head (Opens in a new window) at Biogen this past July.
Now we know: Williams is launching Codiak BioSciences, a biotech startup that is using exosomes (Opens in a new window) as a new tool for therapeutics and diagnostic development for a wide range of diseases, beginning with pancreatic cancer (Opens in a new window).
The startup just closed out the first tranche of an $80 million Series A and B round – enough, Williams said in a phone interview, to potentially commercialize an exosome-based pancreatic cancer diagnostic. He also anticipates bringing an exosome-based therapeutic to clinical trial as early as next year.
(Opens in a new window)
Solving Healthcare’s Provider Data Problem Starts with Interoperability (Opens in a new window)
Break down the silos. Take control of your provider data.
The underlying technology comes from the labs of Raghu Kalluri (Opens in a new window), chairman of the department of cancer biology at MD Anderson. It’s cofounded by Eric Lander, president and founding director of Harvard and MIT’s Broad Institute (Opens in a new window).
Williams said that Kalluri has found a protein that’s specifically expressed om the surface of exosomes from pancreatic cancer. He’s developed an assay that’s worked in animal models and also humans that’s “100 percent specific and 100 percent sensitive” for pancreatic cancer detection, Williams said. “It’s a true statement.”
Exosome analysis yields wide-ranging possibilities for liquid biopsy, Williams said – because “what’s inside exosomes is really a reflection of what’s going on inside a cell.”
It’s fairly simple to produce exosomes, as they can be created from virtually any cell culture. Exosomes, which are small lipid particles that work as extracellular vessels to allow intracellular communication, are produced naturally by all cells. So it’s just a matter of harvesting them, purifying them, and then loading them with an inhibitory RNA or other payload, Williams said.
(Opens in a new window)
What Are Healthcare Organizations Getting Wrong about Email Security? (Opens in a new window)
A new report by Paubox calls for healthcare IT leaders to dispose of outdated assumptions about email security and address the challenges of evolving cybersecurity threats.
“We have quite a bit of preclinical data that hasn’t been published yet that provides the proof of concept,” Williams said.
After all, when an exosome from one cell fuses with the membrane of another cell, it dumps these contents into the cytoplasm – changing the biology of the recipient cell. So if messenger RNA is in the exosome, it’ll be translated into protein in the receiving cell – which is the general concept behind Codiak’s new therapeutic line.
Williams enjoyed success in the four years he held the top R&D spot at Biogen. This came thanks to an R&D overhaul (Opens in a new window) led by Williams – he cut 17 R&D programs he believed were flailing, and added others he believed had strong market potential. Since, the company has done well (Opens in a new window) with its Alzheimer’s (Opens in a new window) and multiple sclerosis (Opens in a new window) pipelines, and its stock has grown (Opens in a new window) accordingly.
“We’re not working with Biogen at the moment, but one of the areas that exosomes could be very valuable in is neurodegeneration – particularly Alzheimer’s disease,” Williams said.
Funding was led by ARCH Venture Partners and Flagship Ventures, with other investors including Fidelity Management, the Alaska Permanent Fund and Alexandria Venture Investments.
“We have enough funding now that our goal is to demonstrate some significant proof of concept,” Williams said. “From there, that could be enough to allow the company to go public, or broaden opportunities for partnerships. That $80 million we have to start out with will carry us a far distance.”