The drug relies on analysis performed at MIT by Giovanni Traverso, a gastroenterologist and mechanical engineer, and Robert Langer, a chemical engineer who has launched greater than two dozen biotech firms.
The 2 found the mechanism when engaged on a method to develop liquid drug formulations that may very well be given to youngsters. They quickly realized they may make this non permanent artificial coating kind of permeable, to both improve absorption or sluggish it down. That latter capacity was interesting as a therapy for weight problems.
“This materials is one thing you’ll take as a capsule or liquid, however the subsequent day it is gone due to the pure turnover of our mucosal floor within the GI tract,” Traverso says. He and Langer cofounded Syntis with Dhanda in 2022. He likens this coating to what mussels and different shellfish use to stay to rocks or the ocean ground.
Within the outcomes Syntis introduced, the drug was delivered in a liquid kind through a tube on to the small gut in order that researchers may examine that the polymer coating fashioned as anticipated. A pill kind has already been examined in pigs and canine, and it’s what Syntis plans to check in future human research.
In rats, the drug produced a constant 1 p.c weekly weight reduction over a six-week examine interval whereas preserving one hundred pc of lean muscle mass.
In a first-in-human pilot examine of 9 members, the drug was protected with no opposed results. Tissue samples taken from the gut have been used to substantiate that the coating fashioned and was additionally cleared from the physique inside 24 hours. The examine wasn’t designed to evaluate weight reduction, however blood testing confirmed that after the drug was given, glucose ranges and the “starvation hormone” ghrelin have been decrease whereas the degrees of leptin, an appetite-regulating hormone, have been larger.
“When vitamins are redirected to later within the gut, you are activating pathways that lead in direction of satiety, vitality expenditure, and general wholesome, sustainable weight reduction,” Dhanda says.
Syntis Bio’s findings in animals additionally trace on the drug’s potential for weight reduction with out compromising muscle mass, one of many considerations with present GLP-1 medication. Whereas weight reduction generally is related to quite a few well being advantages, there’s rising proof that the sort of drastic weight reduction that GLP-1s induce may result in a lack of lean muscle mass.
Louis Aronne, an weight problems drugs specialist and professor of metabolic analysis at Weill-Cornell Medical School, says that whereas GLP-1s are wildly common, they is probably not proper for everybody. He predicts that within the not-so-distant future there will likely be many medication for weight problems and therapy will likely be extra customized. “I believe Syntis’ compound matches in completely as a therapy that may very well be used early on. It’s a sort of factor you could possibly use as a first-line treatment,” he says. Arrone serves as a medical adviser to the corporate.
Vladimir Kushnir, professor of drugs and director of bariatric endoscopy at Washington College in St. Louis, who isn’t concerned with Syntis, says the early pilot knowledge is encouraging, but it surely’s onerous to attract any conclusions from such a small examine. He expects that the drug will make individuals really feel fuller however may even have a few of the identical negative effects as gastric bypass surgical procedure. “My anticipation is that that is going to have some digestive negative effects like bloating and stomach cramping, in addition to probably some diarrhea and nausea as soon as it will get into an even bigger examine,” he says.
It’s early days for this novel method, but when it proves efficient, it may in the future be another or add-on drug to GLP-1 medicines.
