ProFound Therapeutics and Quotient Therapeutics have entered into separate feasibility agreements with GSK to discover and validate novel targets and therapeutic approaches in respiratory and liver diseases—marking the first company-focused agreements signed under the framework collaboration between Flagship and GSK to combine GSK’s disease area expertise and development capabilities with Flagship’s ecosystem of bioplatform companies, inclusive of its novel modalities and technologies.

“Flagship Pioneering and GSK have a shared mission to accelerate the development of breakthrough medicines for patients with the greatest unmet needs by combining innovative new technologies with deep drug development expertise,” said Paul Biondi, Managing Partner, Flagship Pioneering. “These agreements bring together two pioneering approaches to advance innovative treatments for respiratory and liver diseases, and to identify novel and differentiated targets that may alter the course of disease.”

ProFound Collaboration

ProFound will leverage its ProFoundry Platform, which combines protein detection technologies, targeted high-throughput functional validation methods, and advanced computational tools, to unearth a rich source of differentiated potential protein drugs and drug targets from the expanded human proteome, a vast set of previously unrecognized proteins encoded by the human genome. Through two separate agreements, ProFound will advance foundational discoveries to characterize novel proteins with strong genetic associations with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) and examine their therapeutic relevance for these diseases.

Quotient Collaboration

Quotient’s Somatic Genomics platform has the potential to unlock new therapeutic strategies across any disease by studying the natural, acquired genetic diversity present in patients. Through three separate agreements, Quotient will use its somatic genomics technology to identify disease-causal drug targets that have the potential to create breakthrough medicines for COPD, IPF and Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatohepatitis (MASH).

Under the terms of the agreements, if GSK elects to progress into a further collaboration, ProFound and Quotient will advance their respective programs through key preclinical activities, after which GSK will have the exclusive option to advance the programs into clinical studies.