Entrega To Receive $5 Million Investment from Lilly To Advance Proprietary Oral Delivery Technology for Peptides
December 19 2017 - 2:00AM
Business Wire
Novel approach to long-standing delivery
challenge will be pursued for existing and investigational Lilly
therapeutic candidates
Entrega, an affiliate of PureTech Health (LSE: PRTC)
focused on the oral delivery of complex molecules, such as
peptides, that cannot currently be taken orally, is pleased to
announce a research collaboration with Eli Lilly and
Company (NYSE: LLY) (“Lilly”) to advance Entrega’s
proprietary peptide delivery technology. Under the terms of the
initial agreement, Entrega will receive $5 million in equity
and research funding from Lilly to investigate the application of
Entrega’s peptide delivery technology to certain Lilly products and
therapeutic candidates. This initial agreement does not grant Lilly
a development or commercialization license to the Entrega
technology.
“We are excited to work with the innovative team
at Entrega,” said Divakar Ramakrishnan, Vice President, Drug
Delivery and Device R&D at Lilly. “Their approach is novel and
complements our broader efforts in oral macromolecule
delivery."
The vast majority of biologic drugs (including peptides,
proteins and other macromolecules) are currently administered by
injection, which can present challenges for healthcare delivery and
compliance with treatment regimes. Oral administration thus
represents an ideal delivery approach for this increasingly large
class of therapies reshaping many areas of medicine. Entrega’s
technology platform is a unique approach to oral delivery which
uses a proprietary, customizable hydrogel dosage form to control
local fluid microenvironments in the GI tract to both enhance
absorption and reduce the variability of drug exposure.
“Entrega has used a rigorous scientific approach to generate
new insights into one of the most challenging problems in drug
delivery. Our proof-of-concept data demonstrates successful
delivery of peptides in large animals,” said Dr. Robert Langer,
Chairman of Entrega’s Scientific Advisory Board, non-executive
Board member of PureTech Health and Institute Professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “We are excited to
work together with Lilly, who is an experienced collaborator in
this important area of peptide delivery.”
About EntregaEntrega is an affiliate of PureTech
Health (LSE: PRTC) focused on the oral delivery of medications
that cannot currently be taken orally. Its technology has the
potential to deliver a wide variety of biological molecules, drug
substances, and nanoparticles, and may also enable novel
applications in a variety of fields such as disease management and
mobile health tracking. Entrega’s technology uses a proprietary,
customizable hydrogel oral dosage form to control the
gastrointestinal (GI) tract fluid microenvironment surrounding the
hydrogel, enhancing the stability, absorption, and consistency of
large and/or unstable drug molecules.
Entrega’s Directors and Scientific Advisory Board is comprised
of a group of leading experts, including:
Robert Langer, Sc.D., is one of 13 Institute
Professors at MIT (an Institute Professor is the highest honor
awarded to a faculty member). His h-index of 246 is the highest of
any engineer in history. He has over 1,300 issued and pending
patents which have been licensed or sublicensed to over 350
companies. He served as Chairman of the FDA’s SCIENCE BOARD
(highest advisory board) from 1999-2002. Langer is one of a very
few individuals elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the
National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences
and the National Academy of Inventors. He is one of four living
individuals to receive both the US National Medal of Science and
the US National Medal of Technology and Innovation. In 2015, Dr.
Langer received the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. He has
also received the Draper Prize (considered the engineering Nobel
Prize), Albany Medical Center Prize, Wolf Prize for Chemistry,
Millennium Technology Prize, Priestley Medal (highest award of the
American Chemical Society), Gairdner Prize, Kyoto Prize,
Breakthrough Prize and the Lemelson-MIT prize, for being “one of
history’s most prolific inventors in medicine.” In 2017, Nature
Biotechnology named Langer as the Number 1 Translational Researcher
in the world. He holds 32 honorary doctorates including honorary
degrees from Harvard and Yale.
Colin Gardner, Ph.D., was formerly the CSO of a start-up
formulation company (TransForm Pharmaceuticals), which was acquired
by Johnson & Johnson and consequently led to major changes in
the way in which J&J integrated discovery and early
development. Colin stayed on as the President and Site Leader of
TransForm until he retired in June 2009. Before that, Colin was VP
and Global Head of formulation design and development for all Merck
products until 2001. He was involved in the development of 16 NCEs
whose combined maximum annual sales averaged $20Bn and three
vaccines. Colin was born and educated in Scotland, receiving a BSc
and PhD in chemistry from the University of Glasgow. After
post-doctoral studies at Harvard Medical School (Biophysics) and
MIT (Chemical Engineering), he returned to Europe and spent 6 years
in drug discovery at the Merrell International Research Center in
Strasbourg. Since leaving J&J, he has worked with over 30
small and medium-sized pharmaceutical and device companies in the
Boston area, leading to two IPOs and two acquisitions.
Samir Mitragotri, Ph.D., is the Hiller Professor
of Bioengineering and Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired
Engineering at Harvard University. Prior to this, he was the
Mellichamp Chair Professor in the Department of Chemical
Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His
research is focused on transdermal, oral, and targeted drug
delivery systems. He is an elected member of the National Academy
of Engineering, National Academy of Medicine and National Academy
of Inventors. He is also an elected fellow of AAAS, CRS, BMES,
AIMBE, and AAPS. He is an author of over 210 publications, an
inventor on over 150 patent/patent applications, and a 2015, 2016
Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher. He received his BS in
Chemical Engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology,
India and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
Howard B. Rosen, M.B.A., was formerly President of
ALZA Corporation, where he was responsible for all aspects of
managing the drug delivery company as an independent 1000-person
operating company within the Johnson & Johnson Family of
Companies. Over his 10 years at ALZA, Mr. Rosen also had
responsibilities for mergers and acquisitions, R&D planning,
and technology ventures. Previously Mr. Rosen was Vice President,
Commercial Strategy at Gilead Sciences, Inc. Mr. Rosen is a
lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford and
teaches entrepreneurship at the Stanford Graduate School of
Business. He is also a member of the National Academy of
Engineering and holds chemical engineering degrees from MIT and
Stanford.
Rob Armstrong, Ph.D.,
is the Chief Executive Officer, board member, and co-founder of
Boston Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Armstrong was formerly Vice
President of Global External Research and Development and Chorus
for Eli Lilly and Company. In this role, Dr. Armstrong spearheaded
a number of innovative initiatives at Lilly including the
development of an integrated global network of R&D partnerships
and the creation of external funding and molecule sourcing
mechanisms to develop innovative drugs in the Chorus translational
medicine engine. Dr. Armstrong also served as Vice President of
Discovery Chemistry Research and Technologies at Lilly and prior to
joining Lilly, he led Small Molecule Drug Discovery and Development
at Amgen. Dr. Armstrong received bachelor’s degrees in chemistry
and biochemistry from the University of California at San Diego and
a Ph.D. in chemistry from Colorado State University.
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PureTech HealthAllison Mead Talbot, +1
617-651-3156amt@puretechhealth.com
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