CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Flagship Pioneering announced that ProFound Therapeutics and Quotient Therapeutics have signed separate feasibility agreements with GSK to identify and validate new therapeutic targets for respiratory and liver diseases. These represent the first company-level agreements executed under the broader framework collaboration between Flagship and GSK, which brings together GSK’s development capabilities and disease-area expertise with Flagship’s ecosystem of bioplatform companies.
“Flagship Pioneering and GSK have a shared mission to accelerate the development of breakthrough medicines for patients with the greatest unmet needs by combining innovative new technologies with deep drug development expertise,” said Paul Biondi, Managing Partner at Flagship Pioneering. “These agreements bring together two pioneering approaches to advance innovative treatments for respiratory and liver diseases, and to identify novel and differentiated targets that may alter the course of disease.”
ProFound Therapeutics will apply its ProFoundry Platform — which integrates advanced protein-detection capabilities, high-throughput functional validation tools and computational analysis — to uncover previously unrecognized proteins within the expanded human proteome. Through two agreements, the company will investigate novel proteins with strong genetic associations to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and evaluate their therapeutic relevance.
Quotient Therapeutics will use its somatic genomics platform to study naturally occurring, acquired genetic variation in patients. Through three agreements, the company will work to identify disease-causal drug targets for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis. Quotient’s approach is designed to reveal therapeutic opportunities grounded in human biology and patient-specific genetic diversity.
Under the terms of the agreements, GSK will have the option to progress each program into a broader collaboration following initial feasibility work. If exercised, ProFound and Quotient will advance their respective programs through key preclinical milestones, after which GSK may move the programs into clinical development.
