What goals did you set when you co-founded the company in 2001 and where are you now in relation to those objectives?
Integral Molecular is built on innovation. We are a team of about 100 scientists driven by the desire to make a significant impact on the scientific community and ultimately on human health. We launched with licensed technology that we developed at the University of Pennsylvania, and since then we expanded and launched new technologies because we saw a need in the industry for our unique insights and solutions. We take pride in doing what others find difficult or impossible. We tackle integral membrane proteins that span the lipid membrane of cells - such as the Covid-19 spike protein for instance. These are notoriously difficult targets to work with and are not accessible using traditional antibody discovery technologies. By working with complex membrane proteins, we developed behind-the-scenes technologies and solutions to enable other companies to develop drugs and therapeutics for difficult diseases.
What are mAbs and why are they so important for what you do?
mAb stands for monoclonal antibody. Antibodies can be obtained by using a protein or other foreign material to trigger an immune response. Scientists have been making mAbs for over 40 years. Now antibodies are being used to fight cancer, viruses and other types of diseases. Almost half of the drugs on the market are biologics, mostly antibodies. For targets with complex structures that span a cell’s membrane, we developed technologies like the Lipoparticle, or our MPS antibody discovery platform that is built on discovering antibodies against difficult and conserved proteins.
With the right talent, expertise and science, we are able to achieve a 95% success rate in isolating these antibodies, whereas most other companies that discover antibodies only have a 20-25% success rate for these kinds of targets.
And what real life impact are these results having on the life sciences industry?
We are changing the industry by enabling our partners to develop drugs that they otherwise would not be able to. Often our customers will come to us with a difficult target that they have struggled with for years, and within a year we are able to isolate the right antibodies. For example, when the pandemic started we launched our Covid-19 reporter virus particles, which are ‘pseudoviruses’ that do not replicate or cause disease. With this technology, we’ve helped companies combat the virus in a safe and efficient way.
We have also been working behind the scenes to enable companies to test vaccine efficacy in clinical trials. We have been offering reporter virus particles for over a decade, to help combat diseases like dengue, Zika, Ebola, hepatitis C, West Nile virus, HIV and influenza. When the pandemic hit, we applied all of our expertise to SARS-CoV-2 and helped companies with no experience in virology get involved.
How important is the collaboration between academia and the business community, as you are very familiar with both?
Each laboratory in the industry plays a unique role in ensuring that patients ultimately benefit from research conducted. Large pharma plays a part in clinical trials, manufacturing and commercializing the drugs, but a lot of the innovation comes from academic labs and small companies. That translation of academic ideas to innovative products comes through companies like us. Many technologies get stuck in the middle, at a point where they are too advanced to be the subject of academic papers, but not advanced enough to be commercialized. We invest the time and resources needed to commercialize these technologies, and we collaborate with university laboratories, investors and companies to develop innovative ideas and elevate them to a commercial stage where they can then be developed into new technologies, diagnostics or therapeutics.
What are the main objectives you set for Integral Molecular in the coming years?
I think this is the most exciting time for Integral Molecular and for biomedical research in general, and it keeps getting more exciting, as more companies like us are innovating. New technologies and therapeutics are constantly being developed, like CAR-T, mRNA, and emerging cell therapies that are redefining what a therapeutic really means. Of course, the challenges lie in finding ways to get those to the market safely and effectively. These are solutions we strive to create. Our Membrane Proteome Array tests for drug safety in a way that nobody did 10 years ago. We are becoming the gold standard for what defines a highly specific and safe antibody, especially with the FDA and NIH increasingly considering alternatives to animal studies. Integral Molecular wants to continue to impact drug safety, and we are working with partners to develop new drugs and discover antibodies against challenging membrane proteins. All in all, we want to redefine what good science looks like commercially and to enable good science in other companies.
