Founder & CEO John Mulligan Shares Good Therapeutics'​ Journey and Vision for 2022

Founder & CEO John Mulligan Shares Good Therapeutics' Journey and Vision for 2022

No alt text provided for this image

We founded Good Therapeutics to create a new kind of context-dependent drug that is active only when and where it is needed. When we started, many natural proteins were known to be regulated by switching between an active shape and an inactive shape, but this “shape-shifting” approach had never been successfully applied to pharmaceuticals. We thought it would be possible to use a shape-shifting mechanism based on antibody binding to build drugs that act only in the presence of the antibody’s target, and that this kind of context-dependent activity could result in safer, more effective drugs. Karl Handelsman of Codon Capital provided seed funding in 2016 and for the next three years Shannon Okada and I worked in the lab to build a prototype molecule. In parallel, I met with a wide range of pharma company business development and technology outreach groups to get their input on the best initial application for our technology. We decided to focus on the use of cytokines for oncology applications because they can be highly effective, but their use is limited by systemic, on-target toxicity. In 2018 we raised a $22 million Series A financing from a group of leading VC investors from Roche Venture Fund, Rivervest, 3x5 Partners, Digitalis and Codon Capital. We recruited Diane Hollenbaugh as our CSO and grew the team to twelve scientists.  By early 2021 they had generated spectacular animal data demonstrating that our shape-shifting therapeutics could work.

The animal data came from our lead program, a PD-1 regulated IL-2. IL-2 is a cytokine that potently stimulates the immune system. It was first approved as a cancer drug in 1990, but it is so toxic that it has never been widely used. Our lead candidate combines IL-2 and an anti-PD-1 checkpoint antibody with our conditional mechanism so that the IL-2 is active only when the antibody domain is bound to PD-1. It is designed to target IL-2 activity to tumor-killing T cells that express PD-1 while sparing the rest of the immune system. In work led by Justin Killebrew, our Senior Director of Immuno-oncology, our mouse tumor models showed that it is highly effective at destroying tumors and stimulating PD-1 positive T cells, but that it is inactive on PD-1 negative NK cells and T cells that would otherwise respond to unregulated IL-2. 

In early 2021, with positive proof-of-concept data for our technology and our first therapeutic program underway, Good Therapeutics began to add the capabilities needed to take our drugs into the clinic. We grew our staff from 12 scientists to a team of 22. Because partnering is a key element of our business strategy, we recruited Neela Patel as Chief Business Development Officer. She built on our initial contacts to generate substantial traction in discussions with potential partners for the PD1-IL2 program and for a number of earlier stage projects. We also hired David Bienvenue as Senior Director of Protein Sciences. David is responsible for shepherding the development of our research proteins into clinical candidates. The team that David is building has allowed us to shift from outsourcing protein expression to producing and characterizing our own proteins in house. With this growth, we needed more space, so we moved from the Icogenex incubator into a sublet from IDRI in an Alexandria Real Estate building near Seattle’s biotech core in South Lake Union.

Our evolution as a company will continue during 2022. We plan to choose a clinical candidate from our PD1-IL2 program in Q2 and to finish recruiting the in-house preclinical development team that will manage the outsourced CMC and other functions needed to take this molecule into the clinic. We will also advance our programs focused on IL-12, IFNα, and TGFβ with the goal of generating in vivo proof-of-principle data for at least one more program in 2022. In addition, we will continue to expand our basic science and protein sciences groups and to put in place the other business functions we need to grow. Ultimately, we plan to expand the Good Therapeutics’ team to 30 or 35 people over the course of the year. As always, we will aim to provide a safe, supportive and family-friendly working environment where we can combine fun with cutting edge science. 

We expect to sign a partnership deal on at least one program in 2022. In general, we plan to generate Phase 1 human proof-of-concept data before partnering a program. We want to find a partner for each program who is best placed to get our new therapeutic to patients and, as a result, generate good returns for our stakeholders and investors. We have found it useful to start discussions at a very early stage so that we can understand potential partners’ interests and concerns. In this case, the discussions generated interest in our lead PD-1 regulated IL-2 program and in other programs that could yield one or more early-stage deals. 

Good Therapeutics has had a great ride since we launched. None of this would have been possible without the dedication and focus of our whole team and the support of our investors. We are poised for more of the same over the next few years, and I look forward to communicating with you further as our story unfolds.

John, I love what you are doing. It would be great to connect.

Like
Reply
abdiazis adan

Senior Research Associate at ElitechGroup

2y

Congrats and great progress

Like
Reply
David Li

CEO, co-founder at Meliora Therapeutics

2y

Congrats on all the progress John! I remember the early days of Good and supporting your informatics needs back then well :) kudos on the milestones you have achieved since then and excited to see the good you will do for patients!

Like
Reply

To view or add a comment, sign in

Insights from the community

Others also viewed

Explore topics