Unravel Biosciences Partners with Spanios to Discover Therapeutic Targets for Rare Cancer

Rare Daily Staff    

Unravel Biosciences and Spanios have partnered to combine Unravel’s proprietary gene regulatory network and drug-gene interaction network model of human health and drug response with Spanios’s patient-derived tumoroids (PDTs) to discover novel therapeutic targets for rare cancers.

Unravel leverages a machine-learned model of human health to advance drugs for complex diseases, while Spanios has a proprietary patient-derived 3D tumoroid (PDT) platform that brings patient diversity and biological complexity of solid tumors into the earliest stages of drug discovery.  

The partnership combines Unravel’s proprietary gene regulatory network and drug-gene interaction network model of human health and drug response with Spanios’s patient-derived tumoroids (PDTs) to discover novel therapeutic targets for rare cancers. Starting with an undisclosed rare cancer indication, the partnership will pursue novel target and biomarker discovery, setting the stage for future indication expansion to other rare and non-rare oncology indications.

“Spanios’ high-fidelity PDT platform will expand Unravel’s target discovery platform into oncology while building an innovative and versatile partnership framework to tackle additional orphan diseases,” said Richard Novak, cofounder and CEO of Unravel.

Rare cancers together affect more than 400,000 patients per year in the United States and more commonly outside of the United States. The rare indications generally have a poor prognosis and high recurrence rate with limited treatment options.

Unravel will apply its AI gene network-based computational model to predict therapeutic compounds and underlying new targets based on transcriptomic information. Spanios will apply its proprietary PDT platform and access to rare tumor patient samples to screen the compounds in models that better recapitulate the original tumor microenvironment. Both companies will use the hits to discover novel targets and mechanisms of action, further iterating on the synergistic computational-wet-lab screening approach.

“At Spanios, we are committed to rapidly enabling drug development in rare cancers by removing traditional rate limiters in the wet-lab,” said Vivek Ravi, Spanios CEO. “Unravel’s unique perspective on computational drug discovery combined with Spanios’ ability to rapidly validate drug interactions in the wet-lab paves way for discovery of effective drug targets for several rare indications. This collaboration serves as further proof of the important role that early wet-lab validation of computational platforms will play in accelerating the discovery of new therapies for conditions that may have previously gone unaddressed.”

Photo: Richard Novak, founder and CEO of Unravel Biosciences