RNA-based medicines for hearing loss. Delivered.
About
The WHO predicts hearing loss will impact 1 in 10 people by 2050. Medical devices are the standard of care, but they are ineffective for many people.
Despite a prevalence greater than cancer or diabetes, there are currently no treatments available to treat the underlying cellular dysfunction which is the root cause of hearing loss.
Lipid nanoparticle-based mRNA therapeutics were spectacularly validated as a mass market medicine through the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe the time is now to create the world’s first mass market medicine for hearing loss.
Technology
Our lipid nanoparticle based mRNA technology enables us to deliver therapeutic proteins for regeneration and protection of key cells in the cochlea, all at a cost that will make it feasible to create an accessible mass market medicine.
Team
A founding team of world-class scientists, surgeons and entrepreneurs
Dr Arpan Desai CEO
Sunil Shah Board Chair
Prof Manohar Bance
Dr Matthew Smith
Dr Alan Foster
Alice Willer
Dr Arpan Desai CEO
Arpan Desai PhD is CEO and Co-Founder of CamGene, he has over a decade of experience leading project and platform initiatives in the RNA therapeutics space. He has a track record of creating innovative delivery approaches and progressing LNP-based projects from discovery into the clinic across multiple therapeutic areas.
Previously he was MD of NanoVation therapeutics UK, a LNP platform technology company set up by LNP pioneers Professor Pieter Cullis and Professor Dame Molly Stevens. Prior to this he served as a director at AstraZeneca, where he was been involved in leading projects and platform initiatives related to ASOs, anti-miRNA, mRNA for gene editing, vaccines, and protein replacement. This has included playing key roles in collaborations with Moderna, Ionis, VaxEquity and Regulus. He established and led a global matrix team of RNA delivery scientists with the mission of creating new delivery technologies for mRNA. He established key infrastructure for the design and optimization of LNPs. Moreover, several key advances in LNP platform science were obtained, such as the development of a proteomic based screening method for in vivo LNP assessment, evaluation of higher throughput methods for DMTA of LNPs and evaluation of almost 100 external technologies to name a few. His work on understanding how LNPs interact with different tumour cells facilitated the selection of preclinical models to assess LNP performance. This ultimately resulted in AZs first LNP based mRNA project progressing to the clinic – MEDI1191 (partnered with Moderna Therapeutics).
Sunil Shah Board Chair
Co-Founder and Board Chair. Sunil is a serial entrepreneur having begun his career in the Life Sciences team at PA Consulting group followed by co-founding Oxygen Healthcare Ltd which was fully acquired by Piramal Enterprises Ltd (BSE: PEL) in 2013.
Since this time, Sunil has co-founded the o2h Group and is CEO of o2h Ventures which are building an ecosystem to support early-stage Biotech Therapeutic companies. Sunil is highly passionate about building and investing into early-stage biotechnology. For more than two decades, he has been focused on building the o2h biotech ecosystem to support fledgling biotech innovations through investing, mentoring, and providing discovery support to pre-seed and seed stage biotech companies.
Sunil has won the UKBAA Angel Investor of the year award in 2019 as well as the OBN Special Recognition Award for his significant contribution in the Life Sciences Industry. Most recently, Sunil won the CEO of the Year award at Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards. o2h Group includes o2h Ventures, an HMRC approved Knowledge Intensive EIS fund that provides pre-seed and seed funding to Biotech Therapeutics & AI, the fund has now invested into 28 British biotech companies.
Prof Manohar Bance
Co-Founder and Scientific Advisor. Prof Manohar Bance is the Professor of Otology and Skull Base Surgery at the University of Cambridge since 2017. Prior to that he was Prof. and Chair of Otolaryngology at Dalhousie University in Canada. His research interests include optimizing cochlear implants, technology development, surgical outcomes, automated image analysis, new diagnostics, wearable technologies, inner ear pharmacokinetics, and developing new hearing and balance therapies.
He is clinically and surgically active at in otologic and skull base surgery, vestibular disorders, and implants at Cambridge University Hospitals Trust (Addenbrookes) and runs a basic science lab at the Clifford Albutt Building, Biomedical Campus. The Sensory Encoding and Neurosensory Engineering Lab he directs is very multidisciplinary, with cell biologists, physicists, engineers, and medical graduates working together on translational problems in hearing, balance, and neuroscience topics. He collaborates closely with the other researchers and surgeons in Cambridge, and with Engineering Faculty members, as well as nationally and internationally.
Currently, he is the President of the Royal Society of Medicine Section of Otology, and of the British Cochlear Implant Group.
Dr Matthew Smith
Co-Founder and Scientific Advisor. Dr Matthew Smith is a consultant otologist in Cambridge UK, and Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Cambridge. He trained in the East of England including a PhD focussing on Eustachian tube dysfunction and its treatment. Matthew’s clinical work spans neurotology and hearing implants.
He is a surgeon-scientist with academic interests primarily in clinical trials and device development. He is co-CI for the NIHR-funded STARFISH trial exploring different routes of steroid administration for sudden sensorineural hearing loss, and CI for the DEFINE trial investigating remote tinnitus treatment. Matthew co-founded INTEGRATE, the UK ENT Trainee Research Network, is a British Society of Otology council member and is otology Associate Editor for Clinical Otolaryngology.
Dr Alan Foster
Co-Founder and Scientific Advisor. Alan C Foster, Ph.D. is a consultant for drug discovery and development in the fields of neurotology, ophthalmology and neuroscience. Until December 2022 he was Chief Scientific Officer of Otonomy, Inc. and responsible for advancing transtympanically-delivered therapeutics for hearing disorders to clinical proof of concept, including a phase 2 program with BDNF for speech-in-noise difficulties, a phase 2 program with the NMDA receptor antagonist gacyclidine for tinnitus and preclinical validation of an AAV gene therapy for GJB2-mediated genetic hearing loss.
Prior to Otonomy, he served as Vice President of Pharmacology at Allergan and Vice President of Neuroscience at Neurocrine Biosciences. Previously, he held leadership positions at Gensia Pharmaceuticals and Merck. Dr. Foster is a neuroscientist and pharmacologist with over 35 years of drug discovery and development experience, and has authored over 150 scientific publications. He holds a Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology and a Bachelor of Science degree in Physiology and Biochemistry from the University of Southampton, UK.
Alice Willer
Experimental Lead. Alice joined the o2h Discovery UK Biology team as a Research Assistant in June 2022, after receiving her undergraduate honours degree in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry from the University of Oxford.
Now a Research Associate, Alice has been involved in running pre-clinical drug discovery cell-based assays on a number of different client projects and handling a wide variety of mammalian cell lines in so doing. Alice has previously been involved in developing o2h Discovery’s 3D spheroid culture capabilities and is currently working on the development of their offerings in the areas of ProTAC and lipid nanoparticles, as well as continuing their provision of phenotypic screens with the use of high content image analysis
Origins
CEO and co-founder Arpan Desai comes across a news article about the 50th anniversary of the discovery DNA, triggering what will become a life-long passion for learning about genomic medicine. Following a PhD developing nanoparticle delivery systems for RNA, he joins AstraZeneca in Cheshire where he helps to develop some of the first mRNA -based medicines via a collaboration with Moderna.
The Cambridge Effect
Arpan moves to Cambridge where he meets serial entrepreneurs Prashant and Sunil Shah who are building a science park in his village (Hauxton, Cambridge). They see a big opportunity with LNP-mRNA therapeutics and decide, when the time is right, they will form a company together!
Catalyst
mRNA-technology enabled by lipid nanoparticles is the spectacular success story of the COVID-19 pandemic. Arpan is introduced to one of his scientific heroes - Professor Pieter Cullis, the architect of the LNPs used in the COVID vaccine. They work together to set up the UK arm of Pieter’s new company NanoVation Therapeutics with Dame Professor Molly Stevens.
A big idea
Arpan starts discussing mRNA therapeutics with leading ear surgeon-scientist and family friend Matt Smith. They brainstorm with hearing loss pioneers Professor Manohar Bance and Dr Alan Foster and come up with an idea they think will revolutionise the treatment of hearing loss. Sunil helps develop the commercial strategy and invests - CamGene Therapeutics is born!
Execution
The time is now! Arpan joins CamGene full time and establishes a lab making LNP-mRNA at Sunil and Prashant’s Science Park in Hauxton, Cambridge. The team is working on building out a full feasibility data package. Watch this space!
Collaborators
