Guide Therapeutics (GuideRX) has developed a process that allows them to mark nanoparticles with “barcode” and “payload reporter” molecules to bulk-test the drug delivery effectiveness of multiple particles at once – in vivo! This means patients with cancer can be exposed to a plethora of different drug delivering particles, and the ones that effectively reach and medicate target cancer cites can be precisely selected for re-manufacturing.
The platform has already allowed GuideRX to produce in vivo drug delivery data at a rate up to 15,000-fold higher than with standard experiments, and unlike those traditional technologies, the GuideRX platform can develop drugs that selectively target non-liver cell types.
Since the performance of drug carrying molecules differs on a patient-by-patient basis, this platform may revolutionize the way we treat patients by heightening the focus on personalized drug delivery particles, instead of on personalizing the medications within particles themselves. It will also help to significantly diminish the adverse effects of treatments, often caused by delivery of medicine to non-target tissues.
The company was recently founded by PhDs James Dahlman and Cory Sago, both experts in the discipline of genetic barcoding. Dahmlan “studied RNA design and gene editing as a post-doc with Feng Zhang at the Broad Institute, and received his PhD from MIT and Harvard Medical School, where he studied RNA delivery with Robert Langer and Daniel Anderson.” Sago developed the screening technologies utilized by Guide, and has been published in leading scientific journals like PNAS, JACS, Advanced Materials, and ACS Nano.
The company’s board of directors is headed by Andrew Perlman, a serial entrepreneur who has founded two NASDAQ traded pharmaceutical companies and was selected by MIT Technology Review as one of its 35 Innovators Under 35.
Most recently, GuideRX raised a seed investment from GreenPoint Ventures for an undisclosed amount. “The investment provides GuideRx with an opportunity to accelerate its development of therapeutic candidates for treatment of genetic diseases. The ability to deliver to non-liver tissue has become a key bottleneck in the wider application of gene therapies. In partnership with GreatPoint Ventures, GuideRx not only expects to shorten drug development timescales by side-stepping in vitro reseach but to offer safer ways to treat genetic disease.” - Andrew Perlman, Mananging Partner at GreatPoint Ventures
