Biotech researchers embarking on the quest to develop new treatments for various diseases typically face two challenging hurdles. The traditional process requires extensive screening of numerous drug candidates, followed by another round of testing on multiple animals. This standard route is not only slow and costly but also raises ethical concerns regarding animal welfare.
Gordian Biotechnology, a trailblazing startup, has introduced a groundbreaking technology designed to enhance the efficiency of this process, benefiting both animals and humans. The innovation, emanating from the San Francisco-based firm, features a unique animal screening platform that permits the simultaneous testing of several gene therapies using just a single animal subject. This approach departs from traditional methods by allowing the examination of a drug’s effect within a singular cell, potentially enabling one mouse to facilitate the assessment of hundreds of gene therapy candidates swiftly and with minimal animal impact.
We’ve got a platform that allows us to essentially parallelize the hardest part of the drug discovery process, the animal testing process,
said Gordian CEO Francisco LePort.
The inception of Gordian in 2018 was the brainchild of Francisco LePort and Martin Borch Jensen, both 38, who drew inspiration from the Gordian knot—a symbol of complexity—to name their company. Their paths crossed at a Russian bakery, where a discussion on aging and disease led to the establishment of a venture aimed at addressing how aging increases disease risk—a factor often overlooked. Their focus on gene therapy advancements unlocked the door to more efficient animal testing methodologies. With $60 million in funding from entities like Founders Fund, Gigafund, and Horizons Ventures, Gordian currently holds a $170 million valuation as per Pitchbook data.
The platform Gordian offers promises a significant advance in drug screening. It circumvents the labor-intensive drug screening in labs and allows the use of animals that more closely resemble human disease biology, thus serving as better models for human conditions. For instance, horses, which can develop osteoarthritis similar to humans, can now be used more effectively in testing arthritis drugs. With Gordian’s technology, each joint of a horse could be a test site for up to 60 different gene therapies, improving cost-efficiency and reducing the overall impact on the animal.
Employing a strategy of targeting a single diseased cell within an animal with a cell therapy, Gordian mimics lab drug screening but with the added advantage of doing so within a living organism. This enables a closer representation of the effects that might be observed in a patient. Post-experimentation, the cells are extracted and analyzed with AI-assisted software that leverages clinical data to predict a drug’s viability based on cell activity, without compromising the animal’s health.
Gordian has successfully validated its platform through various experiments, such as testing 50 gene therapies on a mouse with a liver condition, with their software accurately identifying 13 out of 16 therapies that had existing clinical data. Similar accuracy was observed for osteoarthritis treatments in horses.
Looking ahead, Gordian aspires to utilize its drug screening platform to unearth new treatment possibilities and advance them into clinical trials, initially focusing on fatty liver disease, osteoarthritis, and heart failure. The company also intends to collaborate with pharmaceutical firms to apply its data to other aging-related disease treatments.
The mission is to cure as many of these diseases as we can,
LePort declared, highlighting the universal nature of the company’s pursuit to find remedies for diseases that touch everyone’s lives.
