PICTURE: Dr. Alessio Fasano, Victoria Kennedy, Dr. Ronald Kleinman, and Dr. Peter
Slavin have their picture taken by a Mass. General staff photographer
at the Museum of Medical History and Innovation.
When Leslie Williams, a former pharmaceutical executive, agreed to
meet a visiting professor from Australia in Boston for a lecture, she
thought it would be a routine lunch in her role as a business mentor.
But the meeting, three years ago at the Boston Cambridge Marriott,
turned into an intense five-hour discussion as Dr. Robert Anderson
explained how his research into celiac disease promised to render the
destructive disorder obsolete.
An autoimmune disease triggered by gluten proteins in wheat, barley,
and rye, celiac disease affects some 3 million Americans. Untreated, it
can destroy digestive tract tissue and can lead to anemia,
osteoporosis, infertility, neurological dysfunction, or even cancer.
Currently, the only solution is to avoid gluten altogether. That
means not eating standard versions of bread, pasta, and pizza, or
anything else that contains even traces of wheat, including soy sauce
and some candy, such as Twizzlers.
But as Anderson explained that afternoon to Williams, his research was zeroing in on a vaccine to cure celiac disease.
The science “struck me as quite special and possibly game-changing,” Williams recalled.
She agreed to work with Anderson, and in short order Williams lined
up seed capital from an angel investor and then went to Australia to
unravel legal agreements around Anderson’s research and his company.
Within the year, ImmusanT was formed, with Williams as chief executive
and Anderson as chief scientific officer. By its first anniversary,
the firm had $20 million in venture funding.
ImmusanT is headquartered in the biotech boomtown of Kendall Square
in Cambridge and is conducting clinical trials for its vaccine, NexVax2,
under “fast-track” designation from the Food and Drug Administration
for diseases for which no comparable therapies exist.
“If it works, you’ll see the entire paradigm of treatment for celiac
changed,” said Sundar Kodiyalam, managing director for the venture
investor Vatera Healthcare and an ImmusanT board member. His firm was so
enamored of the science that it invested before the company had
persuasive clinical data.
Beyond ImmusanT, Boston has become a locus for research into celiac
disease. Massachusetts General Hospital scored a coup when it recently
convinced a leading researcher, Dr. Alessio Fasano, to head its new
celiac treatment and research center. “Our mission is to make life
normal for people with celiac disease,” Fasano said at a ceremony
marking the opening of the Mass. General center in February.
With similar research units at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
and Children’s Hospital Boston, the city now has “a critical mass of
expertise” in celiac disease, said Dr. Ronald Kleinman, physician in
chief of Mass. General’s pediatric unit.
“I’m not sure that I see miracles happening” with the research
underway now, said Lee Graham, chairwoman of Healthy Villi, a 900-member
support group for celiac sufferers in New England. “But the gathering
that’s happening in Boston is terrific, and tremendously encouraging to
us.”
Formerly at the University of Maryland, Fasano in 2003 published a
landmark analysis in which he determined that celiac disease affects
many more people than previously thought: about 1 out of 100 people. Up
to that point, the scientific wisdom was that celiac was relatively
rare, and that a gluten-free diet worked as a sufficient “cure.”
But Fasano and others have since shown that some patients who avoid
gluten continue to suffer gastric distress, leading to the conclusion
that diet alone is not enough.
Not surprisingly, with the market for gluten-free foods at $4.2 billion, ImmunsanT has some company in the race for a solution.
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