Pragma Bio, a tech-enabled drug discovery company, and DayTwo, a leading microbiome discovery company, are joining forces to forge a groundbreaking collaboration to deeply understand the interactions between the human gut and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). The partnership is focused on leveraging cutting-edge technology and extensive patients’ datasets and metagenomic data to answer unmet needs in the Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) space through the foundational discovery of biomarkers and therapeutics.
A pioneering alliance and the quest for insight
Pragma Bio possesses a unique capability to decipher metagenomes from stool samples. Their expansive “omics”-based biosynthetic pathways database comprises data from over 20,000 patients samples across immune-related disease areas. This is a valuable resource for mining phenotypically correlated small molecules. Coupled with this, Pragma Bio also has synthetic biology and immunology capabilities to express, analyze, and test the molecules that are being bioinformatically nominated. Pragma Bio believes that those phenotypically correlated biosynthetic pathways are the hidden path to predict and make novel clinical biomarkers and small molecules to change the landscape of IBD disease management.
DayTwo is a leader in microbiome research with highly curated and indexed personalized data. Leveraging on their Real World Evidence (RWE) and stool metagenomics, DayTwo has already been a pioneer in the field of precision nutrition by predicting postprandial glucose responses using microbiome and clinical data and empowers individuals to manage and prevent metabolic diseases effectively. The company boasts the world’s largest collection of gut microbiome metagenomic sequence data, from 100,000 patients’ samples enriched with personal and clinical information through a direct-to-consumer and a strategic partnership with a prominent health provider.
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A significant stride toward understanding and addressing IBD comprehensively
Pragma Bio and DayTwo aim to identify biosynthetic pathways associated with IBD. The collaboration will focus on the identification of potential biomarkers for IBD disease management and small molecule therapeutics candidates based on unique clinical metadata and metagenomics, including data on therapeutic regimes, responsiveness, and outcomes. These insights will ultimately be used to fuel understanding of disease progression, stratify patients for therapeutics and clinical trials, and provide clinical candidates for novel therapeutics. Using the gut-associated microbial biosynthetic pathways as the starting point for discovery enables access to unique small molecules for therapeutics purposes.
Both companies signed the collaboration in October 2023 and immediately joined forces to establish a unique operational pipeline to enable robust BGCs phenotypic correlation based on thousands of IBD patients. Phenotypically correlated small molecules found in the gut offer significant advantages for drug discovery including lower likelihood of toxicity and attractive properties. This approach overcomes many existing hurdles of drug design and optimizes for both safety and significantly improved management of disease. While these molecules are likely to be overlooked by conventional target-led drug development approaches, Pragma Bio and DayTwo believe that these are the molecules that matter when addressing significant unmet needs within the IBD disease management sphere.
“Our ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life of the millions of patients that chronically suffer from IBD. To get there, it starts with having the most robust and comprehensive dataset of its kind. Our partnership with DayTwo gives us the unfair advantage to unlock the many mysteries of IBD and where to focus our efforts. We are thrilled to partner with a great organization that aligns with our motives and mission,” said Kareem Barghouti, the CEO of Pragma Bio.
SOURCE : BusinessWire