PureTech Launches Another Startup Commense in Boston
March 31, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Boston-based PureTech, a hybrid research-and-development and venture capital firm, announced that it has launched another startup, Commense.
Commense will focus on preventing and treating diseases through microbiome-based treatments in infancy and early childhood. The goal is to use a method developed developed by scientists at New York University’s Langone Medical Center that would treat babies born by C-section by essentially inoculating them with a mix of microbes associated with a woman’s vagina.
“A child’s early interactions with microbes can play an essential role in health and are believed to impact the later development of serious conditions such as asthma, food allergies, type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis,” said David Steinberg, co-founder of Commense and executive vice president of PureTech, in a statement. “We are pleased to advance our work in the early childhood microbiome with the expansion of our pipeline and the addition of an esteemed group of advisors.”
The startup received an exclusive, worldwide license from NYU for a significant component of its technology platform. It came out of the laboratory of Commense co-founder and scientific advisory board member Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Additional members include Rob Knight, professor in the department of pediatrics and professor in the department of computer science and engineering at the University of California San Diego; Martin Blaser, scientific co-founder and member of the SAB, is a professor of microbiology at NYU Langonge Medical Center and director of the Human Microbiome Program; B. Brett Finlay, scientific co-founder and SAB member, is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of British Columbia; Joseph St. Geme, an advisor and SAB member, is physician-in-chief and chairman of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; and Sam Kass, advisor and board member, is a senior policy advisor for nutrition policy at the White House and former executive director of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! childhood health campaign.
The company’s foundation is based on research by Dominguez-Bello published earlier this year in Nature Medicine, “Partial restoration of the microbiota of cesarean-born infants via vaginal microbial transfer.”
“These extremely exciting initial data give promise to the hope that all newborns might receive the potential health advantages of their mothers’ beneficial microbes, in a manner reminiscent of the now-established benefits of fecal microbial transfers for C. difficile infections,” said Dominguez-Bello said in a statement. “We’ve been overwhelmed by the support and positive response to the study by mothers, physicians, and researchers.”
PureTech has about a dozen companies in its pipeline, including Vedanta Biosciences, which develops microbiome-derived therapies to treat infectious diseases, allergies and autoimmune disorders; Gelesis, a clinical stage company working on a weight loss pill; Akili Interactive Labs, a clinical stage company working on cognitive disorders like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, and Alzheimer’s; and others.