Eleven Therapeutics Announces Research Collaboration with Novo Nordisk to Discover Cell-Specific Carriers of Nucleic Acid Therapeutics

CAMBRIDGE, Mass and CAMBRIDGE, England, July 17, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Eleven Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing next-generation RNA therapeutics through the mastery of combinatorial chemistry and artificial intelligence, today announced a research collaboration with the global healthcare company Novo Nordisk. Through this collaboration, the companies aim to identify novel molecules that promote precise delivery of nucleic acid by leveraging Eleven's innovative DELiveri™ platform, ushering in a new era of precision in nucleic acid medicine for cardiometabolic diseases.

Nucleic acid therapeutics have immense potential for cardiometabolic diseases. However, the major challenge to their successful development as safe and effective agents is the paucity of organ-specific delivery agents. The DELiveri™ platform revolutionises the field of nucleic acid therapeutics by utilising DNA-encoded libraries (DELs) to discover conjugates that effectively deliver therapeutic molecules and present great promise for a multitude of potential therapeutic areas. This collaboration provides Novo Nordisk with exclusivity for specific cell types and applications associated with Eleven's innovative DELiveri™ platform in a staged approach.

Uli Stilz, Head of Novo Nordisk's Bio Innovation Hub in Boston, stated, "Our research collaboration with Eleven Therapeutics builds on Novo Nordisk's commitment to advancing precision medicine and opens up the opportunity to learn from one another as we explore novel cell-specific targeting strategies. With the combination of our joint team's expertise and using Eleven's DELiveri™ platform, we can potentially unlock transformative treatments for people living with cardiometabolic diseases."

Prof. Yaniv Erlich, CEO of Eleven Therapeutics, remarked, "We are delighted to collaborate with Novo Nordisk, a leader in global healthcare. Firstly, this collaboration has the potential for immense positive impact on patients' lives through the multitude of therapeutic cargos each of the discovered carriers could afford. Furthermore, it is a testament to the promise of our DELiveri™ platform, which is uniquely tailored to discover cell-selective delivery moieties — small molecules and other types — at an efficiency level yet to be observed in this field, thanks to the throughput capabilities of DELs."

Eleven Therapeutics is committed to maximising the impact of the DELiveri™ platform for the benefit of patients through expanding collaboration with innovative partners working in specific cell-type and disease area applications. Novo Nordisk's Bio Innovation Hub is an R&D unit designed to bring cutting-edge life science innovation from bench to bedside through co-creation partnerships, with a strategic focus within cardiometabolic, rare endocrine, and blood disorders.

About the DELiveri^TM Platform

Eleven Therapeutics' DELiveri™ platform presents a game-changing approach to the delivery of nucleic acid therapeutics, overcoming the many complex challenges that plague the field. DELiveri™ uses DNA-encoded libraries (DELs) to discover conjugates that effectively deliver therapeutic molecules into target cell types of interest. This innovation obviates a key obstacle: the requirement for multiple conditions to co-occur simultaneously. Instead, DELiveri™ harnesses DEL to identify novel cell-specific internalising molecules via hypothesis-free, high-throughput screening of a vast number of small molecules. Traditional direct DEL screens struggle to differentiate between molecules that successfully internalise cargo into the cytoplasm and those that remain on the cell's outer membrane or become trapped in inaccessible organelles. To overcome this limitation, Eleven's DELiveri™ platform was engineered as a synthetic biology solution, transforming screened cells into molecular radars. The resulting signals are transformed into quantitative scores that describe the delivery potential of each molecule in the library. Utilizing ML/AI tools, Eleven is able to pinpoint molecules that promote cell specific delivery of nucleic acid therapeutics.

About Eleven Therapeutics

Eleven Therapeutics ushers in the next generation of RNA therapeutics by mastering combinatorial chemistry, synthetic biology and AI. Our pipeline is comprised of extended-release mRNA therapeutics — dubbed xRNA — addressing unmet medical needs in the metabolic, hematologic and infectious disease areas, as well as prophylactic siRNAs for pandemic-poised viral infections. The pipeline is enabled by our proprietary high throughput screening platforms, TERA™ and DELiveri™, which, respectively, generate chemically modified xRNAs and cell-penetrating delivery carriers. The company was founded in 2020 by world-leading, interdisciplinary scientists in Cambridge (UK), Boston (US), and Tel Aviv (Israel), capitalising on the world's top talent pools. Eleven Tx was seeded by top VCs and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  

Contacts

Era Duek
VP Research Operations
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Eleven Therapeutics