Drug development is a complex, costly and time-consuming process.
To ensure that pharmaceuticals are safe and effective, the interval between a laboratory breakthrough and a therapy that’s ready for clinical trials can be a decade or more.
That long wait is no comfort to patients who are suffering from debilitating or potentially deadly medical conditions. The price of new treatments can also be a bitter pill for families.
But a pair of Carleton University researchers are playing key roles in promising efforts to accelerate health advances from the lab to the market and, at the same time, make some meds more affordable.
Biochemists Kyle Biggar and Jeff Smith both work with startup companies based in Carleton’s Health Sciences Building. These collaborations, supported by local biotech accelerator Capital BioVentures, are focused on springing off university research to swiftly improve health outcomes for people across Canada and beyond.
From Bench to Bedside
Biggar works with peptides, short, Lego-like chains of amino acids that can be used to target problems within cells, and to treat cancer, metabolic disorders and illnesses caused by microorganisms.
Biggar and his group test peptides created by his Carleton engineering colleague Jim Green‘s AI algorithm to determine which ones have the potential to target problematic cells. Once these candidates are identified, the team conducts wet-lab experiments to validate their computational models and then selects therapeutic candidates, a step toward medical use.
This is where NuvoBio comes into the picture, moving its head office onto Carleton’s campus in fall 2024. The company, co-founded by Biggar and former Corel Corporation CEO Michael Cowpland, expedites the development of peptide therapeutics.
“To bring innovation closer to patients,” Biggar says, “we’ve teamed up with an exceptional Canadian entrepreneur to bring our medicine from bench to bedside.”
NuvoBio’s development pipeline includes peptides that show potential in oncology and infectious diseases. But for now, the company is concentrating on a product called NeoPeptix that’s effective at treating Cryptococcus neoformans, the pathogen that causes fungal meningitis and is responsible for 20 per cent of all HIV-related deaths globally.
Early preclinical tests indicate that NeoPeptix is significantly more potent than available therapeutics. NuvoBio is aiming to submit a request for authorization to begin clinical trials to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by 2027.
“Often, a researcher will make a therapeutic lead, then publish a paper or maybe patent it, but they don’t know where to go next,” says Biggar.
“We’re motivated to translate scientific discovery into practical healthcare solutions.”
‘Fixing’ Faulty Genes
Like peptide therapeutics, gene therapy is a rapidly evolving medical technique that’s used to treat diseases and conditions such as cancer, cystic fibrosis, diabetes and AIDS. It can involve exposing a patient to a virus that “fixes” the faulty gene at the core of the ailment and then stops replicating itself.
These viral medicines are difficult and very costly to manufacture.
A dozen years ago, Carleton’s Jeff Smith helped longtime collaborator Jean-Simon Diallo from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute develop a set of molecules that enhanced the growth of viral medicines. That advance prompted Diallo to co-found a company that has developed a line of proprietary cell enhancers to increase the yield and improve the quality of viral medicines.
Virica, which is located beside NuvoBio, is successful, according to Smith, because its technology has the potential to reduce the financial barriers to effective treatments.
Smith specializes in mass spectrometry, analyzing the chemical composition of substances and how their molecular structures change over time, a technique that’s central to the creation of drugs for a wide range of conditions and is a crucial part of Virica’s process.
This collaboration also gives Carleton students a chance to contribute to leading-edge research and, potentially, to step into jobs after graduation — “a seamless transition between environments,” says Smith.
“The opportunities for this type of medicine are phenomenal,” he adds.
“It’s great to help industry solve analytical challenges, but there’s an extra layer of gratification in making grassroots scientific discoveries with another researcher and seeing that turn into a company that’s helping produce advanced therapeutics.”
Companies like Virica and NuvoBio, which are ultimately dedicated to ensuring that patients have access to safe, effective and lower-cost treatments as quickly as possible.
