The Bio Report

A chronic shortage of high‑quality targets remains one of the biggest constraints in drug discovery, even as therapeutic tools become more powerful and diverse. Regeneron is tackling that problem with its Regeneron Genetics Center, which has built a genetics‑driven discovery engine that integrates human genetics with rich clinical data, large‑scale proteomics, and AI‑driven analytics. Aris Baras, head of the Regeneron Genetics Center, discusses how proteomics is reshaping RGC’s view of risk prediction, how AI helps his team sift through hundreds of millions of variants, and what it really takes to scale this kind of effort and translate it into more successful, transformative therapies for patients.

Epigenetics, the layer of chemical switches that controls how genes are turned on and off, can act like cancer’s operating system when a single epigenetic enzyme becomes essential for a tumor to survive. K36 Therapeutics is developing first‑in‑class medicines that block an epigenetic enzyme that helps certain multiple myeloma cells grow, change identity to escape treatment, and become resistant to today’s drugs. Terry Connolly, CEO of K36, discusses a new way to fight cancer by changing how cancer cells read their DNA instead of chasing one mutation at a time, how K36’s experimental therapies aim to re‑sensitize tumors to existing treatments, and the potential to create new options for people whose cancers have stopped responding.

Most marketed antibodies work as antagonists, simply shutting off a receptor, even though many immune, metabolic, and cancer pathways require more nuanced control. Metaphore Biotechnologies' function‑first platform combines live-cell experiments with machine learning to read how receptors and binding partners behave in living systems, distill those complex dynamics into the key functional features, and then design functional antibodies that agonize, bias, or multi-target pathways from the outset. Metaphore CEO Angela Hwang discusses how the company is using this approach to open up difficult or previously undruggable targets, generate medicines with better profiles, and give drug developers greater control over complex signaling than traditional drug development approaches allow.

Cells continuously sense their environment and in response to stressors, adapt, recover, or die. Soley Therapeutics uses its AI platform to capture thousands of intracellular features and map how cells sense, interpret, and respond to stress. The approach gives Soley the ability to pursue previously undruggable targets. It has generated more than 10 novel oncology programs in less than two years and advanced two first‑in‑class experimental small molecule therapies toward the clinic. Yerem Yeghiazarians, co-founder and CEO of Soley, discusses the science behind the company’s first-in-class lead candidate, the applicability of Soley’s platform to a broad set of diseases, and the capital efficiency of the company’s approach to drug development.

Promising drugs can become abandoned or underused because of tolerability issues, poor drug‑like properties, or other fixable limitations, even when there is already compelling human evidence that they work. PureTech Health starts with an unmet need and human pharmacology, then systematically dissects and solves the specific liabilities of discontinued drugs to unlock breakthroughs in an approach that has proved to be a highly efficient means of value creation. Eric Elenko, president and co‑founder of PureTech, discusses the company’s disciplined approach to drug innovation around rescuing promising but discontinued therapeutics, its hub‑and‑spoke structure, and how this model can neutralize emotional bias, enforce clear success criteria, and turn partially derisked assets into commercial successes.