The human battle towards viruses is an never-ending wrestle for benefit. As we adapt and evolve to outlive, pathogens evolve in response to us. This ongoing cycle is named the Pink Queen speculation. Pink Queen Therapeutics is known as for this idea of evolutionary biology, and the startup is now out of stealth, revealing a know-how platform and drug pipeline that would give people the higher hand towards prevalent viral threats.
Pink Queen launched Tuesday backed by a $55 million Collection A dedication from Apple Tree Companions, the enterprise capital agency that fashioned and incubated the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup.
Whereas Pink Queen, the corporate, is new, the world has already seen the Pink Queen organic idea in motion. The Covid-19 pandemic spurred analysis that led to the event and authorization of recent antivirals. Viral mutations gave rise to variants resistant to those therapies. Many of those Covid-19 medicine had been designed to interrupt a step in viral replication after a virus has already injected its nucleic acids to hijack a cell’s equipment, stated Mark Mitchnick, president and CEO of Pink Queen and a enterprise companion at Apple Tree.
Pink Queen’s antivirals are peptides. Slightly than blocking viral replication inside a cell, these peptides block a virus from fusing to the cell within the first place. Viral fusion is extremely conserved, that means it doesn’t change whilst viruses mutate. That makes it a priceless antiviral goal. By blocking this extremely conserved mechanism, Pink Queen’s therapies have potential software to a number of viral households and their variants.
“As a result of they’re immune to resistance, so to talk, ought to the following Covid variant or the following flu variant present up, it’s extremely probably that the peptide we’ve got now would have good exercise,” Mitchnick stated.
Pink Queen is taking a brand new method to an previous concept. Fuzeon, an HIV drug accepted in 2003 and at present marketed by Roche, is a peptide designed to dam viral fusion. That drug employs the identical basic science as Pink Queen, although the startup brings new know-how. Peptides by nature are unstable, and this instability is a drawback, Mitchnick stated. Peptides require chilly storage. After dosing, they’re quickly topic to breakdown by enzymes within the physique. Peptide medicine can also’t be administered orally.
The antivirals of Pink Queen are “stapled” peptides, that means they’re chemically stabilized in a selected conformation, Mitchnick defined. This stability overcomes a number of the limitations of peptide medicine, making degradation by bodily enzymes much less probably. Stability additionally allows storage at room temperature and dosing by way of a nasal spray, inhaler, or by injection. Along with the stapling, Pink Queen attaches a bit of ldl cholesterol to the peptide, which helps situate the molecule on the cell membrane.
Pink Queen’s stapled peptide platform know-how relies on analysis from Dr. Loren Walensky, attending doctor within the division of pediatric oncology on the Dana-Farber Most cancers Institute/Boston Kids’s Hospital and a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical Faculty. Preclinical analysis from Walensky’s lab was revealed in January in Nature Communications.
Pink Queen started its work about three years in the past. A Covid-19 antiviral named RQ-01 is the startup’s lead program. The corporate has proof-of-concept information from a placebo-controlled Section 1 research that enrolled 67 mildly symptomatic Covid-19 sufferers. Outcomes present the nasal spray administered remedy’s security was corresponding to placebo. The small research was not powered to display efficacy, however outcomes present a dose-dependent development towards clearance of SARS-CoV-2 an infection in addition to exercise of the peptide towards an infection development. The information had been offered in June throughout the American Society for Microbiology’s ASM Microbe assembly.
Pink Queen will not be Apple Tree’s first foray into stapled peptides. The VC agency was the founding investor of Aileron Therapeutics, whose peptide know-how was primarily based on Walensky’s earlier stapled peptide analysis. Aileron went public in 2017, elevating cash for a pipeline that included a lead program in improvement for most cancers. The failure of a breast most cancers research final yr led Aileron to cease its most cancers work. Final October, Aileron acquired Lung Therapeutics and shifted focus to lungs medicine that aren’t stapled peptides. There’s a minimum of one different biotech growing stapled peptide medicine. Equillium has an orally administered stapled peptide in preclinical improvement for gastrointestinal indications. Mitchnick stated he believes Pink Queen is the primary firm to enter the clinic with a stapled peptide for infectious illness.
The potential of stapled peptides to fight infectious illness has drawn curiosity from the federal authorities. Earlier this yr, the Biomedical Superior Analysis and Improvement Authority (BARDA) awarded Pink Queen a $750,000 contract to generate preclinical proof-of-concept information for a pan-influenza therapeutic. Mitchnick stated this analysis can be trying on the drug’s exercise towards Ebola virus, Nipah virus, and hemorrhagic fevers. Research are already underway testing the drug towards avian influenza, which is of rising public well being concern. A multi-state outbreak of fowl flu in cattle has led to a small however rising variety of contaminated farm employees. The Pink Queen pipeline additionally consists of RQ-02 in improvement for respiratory syncytial virus, human metapneumovirus, and human parainfluenza viruses, in addition to RQ-04 for herpes.
With the brand new financing, Pink Queen plans to advance its Covid-19 drug to a Section 2 research in late 2025 enrolling immunocompromised sufferers. Mortality and morbidity on this group is excessive, and even when these sufferers recuperate, they don’t clear the virus in a short time, Mitchnick stated. The trial will check RQ-01 and the usual of care in comparison with customary of care alone. The corporate can be exploring partnerships. Mitchnick stated Pink Queen has fielded inquiries from firms and authorities businesses. The steadiness of a Pink Queen infectious illness therapeutic makes it appropriate for stockpiling prematurely of an epidemic or pandemic menace, Mitchnick stated.
“If you speak about public well being, when you can keep away from a chilly chain, that’s an enormous plus, particularly if you consider globally outdoors the U.S.,” he stated.
Photograph: Pink Queen Therapeutics
