Page 73 - Forbes - Africa (March 2020)

OMERVILLE,MASSACHUSETTS-BASEDFINCH to 10 key bacteria. It expects results from its first Phase 2 trial (which
Therapeuticsisoneofthemostpromisingstartupsdeveloping demonstratesefficacy)ofthefull-spectrumC.diffcapsulebytheend of
microbiomedrugs.CofounderMarkSmith,33,wasa thesecondquarterof2020.
SmicrobiologygradstudentatMITwhenthe20-somethingC. “Evenifonlyafewofthemicrobiometherapiesscientistsare
diffpatientbeggedhimforhelp.“Ihadtotellhim,I’mamicrobiologist, workingoncometofruition,” Smith says, “it will have a huge impact
notadoctor,”Smithsays. onpublichealth.”
The patient’s ordeal motivated Smith to create Open-Biome, the
equivalentofapublicbloodbankforhumanfeces,whileSmithwasstill NOTHER MIT PH.D., BERNAT OLLE, 40, IS
at MIT in 2013. The Cambridge, Massachusetts, non-profit, the first runningVedantaBiosciences,anine-year-oldCambridge,
of its kind in the world, has since supplied stool for more than 53,000 Massachusetts-basedmicrobiomedrugdeveloperwith$112
transplantsin1,200hospitalsandclinics. Amillioninfunding,including$10millionfromtheBill&
Inspired by the demand for transplants, Smith cofounded for-profit MelindaGatesFoundation.TheGatesinvestmentsupportspreclinical
Finch(namedforthediversegroupoffinchesCharlesDarwindiscovered researchatVedantaaimedatdevelopingagutbacteria–deriveddrug

in the Galápagos Islands) in 2016 to develop an FDA-approved C. thatwouldpreventchildmalnutritioninthedevelopingworld.Nearly
diff pill. Currently, most doctors perform fecal transplants through a 200millionchildrenunderagefivesufferfromeitherwastingor
colonoscopy, which can cost as much as $5,000. The procedure is not stunting,resultinginatleast1.5milliondeathsayear.“Malnourished
FDA-approvedorreliablycoveredbyinsurance. childrenstruggletogainweightevenwhenfedenough,”Ollesays.
Smith and his 80 employees occupy two floors in an industrial park “Emergingresearchsuggeststhatthisisbecausetheirgutmicrobiota
that formerly housed administrative offices and storage space for the developabnormally,andthatbeneficialgutbacterialstrainsmayhelp
Harvard Art Museums. Tall and slender with piercing blue eyes, he correctthisimbalance.”
welcomes the inevitable jokes that come with being a human-feces Vedantaalsohastwopartnershipswithbigpharmaceutical
entrepreneur.On companies,includingBristol-MyersSquibb,todevelopdrugsaimed
Halloween he wore a poop-emoji costume (“I was a pooper atboostingtheeffectivenessofimmunotherapytotreatmelanoma
trooper”) to the office, where the copiers have names like Squatty andcolorectalandgastriccancers. Like Finch, Vedanta is developing a
Potty and Magic Stool Bus. drug to treat recurrentC. diff.
But he has raised serious capital.
Venture funds have put in $130 million,
and Finch has a partnership with Tokyo-
based pharma giant Takeda to develop
drugs for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s
disease, which together have 10 million
sufferersworldwide.Finchisalsoworking
onanautismdrug.
Traditionally, scientists start with data
gathered through experiments on mice.
Finch is taking a “human-first” approach,
skipping the rodents and analysing
the stool of human patients who have

recoveredafterreceivingfecaltransplants.
“We’re looking at what works in patients
and figuring out how to make our drugs
fromthetopdown,”Smithsays.“It’scalled
reversetranslation.”
For one of its C. diff drugs, Finch is
extracting what Smith describes as the
“full spectrum” of bacteria in a human
stool sample from a patient who has
been successfully treated, freeze-drying
it and delivering the equivalent of a Drugs From Bugs
fecal transplant in a single pill. It’s also Bernat Olle, cofounder and CEO of Vedanta Biosciences, in one of Vedanta’s labs
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “I don’t think there’s any other field of medicine today
working on simpler drugs made from five that holds as much promise for the future of medicine as the microbiome.”

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