Arena BioWorks Launches as a Privately Funded, Fully Independent Biomedical Institute to Shorten the Path from Insight to Therapeutics

• Focused on determining the mechanisms of human disease and advancing new technologies to translate these insights into therapeutics through in-house biotech companies
• Co-founders include world-renowned Harvard University scientist Stuart Schreiber, who cofounded the Broad Institute, Steve Pagliuca, former Bain Capital Co-Chair, and Tom Cahill of life science venture capital firm Newpath Partners
• Core scientific team includes Stuart Schreiber, Keith Joung, and other leading scientists to be announced at a later date
• Founding investors Steve Pagliuca, Michael Dell, Michael Chambers, Jim Breyer, and Elisabeth DeLuca provided initial capital to enable a self-sustaining model for the Institute

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Arena BioWorks announced today its launch as a biomedical research institute with a mission to uncover mechanisms of disease by engaging in basic biological research that will be translated into lifesaving biotech therapeutics. Inspired by the success of Bell Labs, Arena BioWorks is a dual-purpose entity aimed at achieving social good and creating long-term sustainable impact through the formation of for-profit biotechnology companies. It is located in a state-of-the-art facility in the Kendall Square biotech hub in Cambridge, MA and will collaborate globally to maximize societal benefit worldwide. As part of its novel model, discovery and company creation will occur seamlessly under one roof. By relying solely on private funding, Arena will be able to quickly translate insight into discovery, distinguishing it from traditional models. Arena will support development efforts with its drug discovery platforms through preclinical studies and beyond, when appropriate.

Arena is led by a management committee that comprises preeminent chemical biology pioneer, Stuart Schreiber, Ph.D. as Chief Executive Officer to drive the scientific vision, former Co-Chair of Bain Capital and award-winning philanthropist, Steve Pagliuca, as Executive Chair, and Founder and Managing Partner of the life science venture capital firm Newpath Partners, Tom Cahill, M.D., Ph.D. as Institute Representative.

Keith Joung, M.D., Ph.D., a leading innovator in the field of CRISPR gene editing, formerly of Massachusetts General Hospital, joins Schreiber as part of the core scientific team, along with several other field leaders to be announced in the future.

Arena's unique model

Scientists in traditional academic settings face many challenges between the conception of a grant-funded idea and the clinical validation of a hypothesis within a venture capital-funded biotech company. Arena's private funding model empowers scientists to investigate any disease, not just those likely to win grant funding or venture capital approval. When Arena's human biology approach elucidates a disease mechanism, Arena will form a company to translate that insight to the clinic. These emerging companies, which might recruit external scientists and leaders, will all be developed within the resource-rich ecosystem of Arena. Arena will foster cross-collaboration amongst its companies and provide shared, cross-discipline leadership, equipment, and space, allowing for efficient use of capital and acceleration of progress.

Noted Schreiber, "Arena's single source of funding frees our scientists from the typical short-term cycles of grant and venture capital funding. Our aim is to accelerate progression from deep mechanistic human biology to biotech-enabled drug development."

As companies evolve and return capital, a portion of it will flow back to the institute, a differentiation from traditional research institutes. Over the long term, Arena will derive its operational funding through biotech companies built on its own discoveries. Other returns will be distributed such that scientists at all levels are incentivized to create value while working transparently and collaboratively.

"Arena aims to complement existing institutions," said Steve Pagliuca. "We are combining and building on the best practices from universities, institutes, and venture capital firms to create a new model that will speed the development of life-saving medicines for patients. In addition, by reinvesting a portion of the profits returned from discoveries and resulting therapies, Arena will be a self-sustaining center of excellence focused on improving human health in perpetuity."

"There's never been a greater opportunity for scientific entrepreneurs to make a difference for patients. Arena is launching at a threshold moment in biotech, with imminent discoveries poised to revolutionize medical care," said Tom Cahill, a medical doctor and biotech venture capitalist who has built multiple successful biotech companies from the ground up. "We've crafted something special with Arena and are humbled by the progress our team has made. When we conceived the idea nearly two years ago, we never anticipated things would come together with so much energy and enthusiasm."

Areas of focus

Rather than focus on a particular area or disease, Arena will reach broadly across indications with the greatest unmet medical needs and for which there is a deep understanding of human pathobiology. These indications include areas of brain health, oncology, immunology, and aging, among others. 

Arena will advance platform technologies including chemoproteomics, molecular glue and covalent drug discovery, high-throughput screening, protein and antibody engineering, gene and epigenetic editing, gene and cell therapies, drug delivery, and data science. As nature does not respect the arbitrary boundaries often drawn around scientific disciplines, leaders from a wide variety of fields will come together to work as one team to maximize the potential for innovation.

This approach caught the attention of founding investor Jim Breyer, who has topped Forbes's Midas List numerous times. "As a venture capitalist it is my job to imagine future possibilities, and I saw an enormous opportunity in Arena's interdisciplinary talent bringing together leading AI researchers, tenured drug developers, and physicians for drug discovery. I'm also intrigued by the idea that when the time comes, quantum computing and other quantum technologies could play an exciting role in biomedicine as well."

Joung pointed out, "Arena's approach to drug discovery, which hinges on strong basic science and relevant human biology, appeals to me as a physician-scientist. With an experiment that directly probes human biology, we can immediately consider how to answer fundamental questions in the most physiologically relevant way, which also puts us that much closer to translating the answer into a drug."

When a therapeutic is advanced, Arena companies will benefit from the expertise of founding investor Michael Chambers, who built a 2-person company started in 1998 in borrowed space at North Dakota State University into a $9.6 billion biomanufacturing company. "Innovations in biomanufacturing have the power to lower the time and cost of delivering therapeutics without sacrificing their safety," said Chambers. "I am excited to build on what we've learned at Aldevron to bring therapies to patients faster by harnessing AI, machine learning, and robotics in next-generation biomanufacturing of therapeutics developed at Arena."

About Arena's leadership

Stuart Schreiber, Ph.D. is the Morris Loeb Research Professor at Harvard University, a co-founder of the Broad Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Emeritus, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine. His approach to discovering new therapeutics guided many biotechnology companies that he founded, including Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Ariad Pharmaceuticals. He has founded or co-founded 14 biotechnology companies in total, which have developed 16 first-in-human approved drugs or advanced clinical candidates. His labs at Harvard and the Broad Institute integrated chemical biology and human biology to advance the science of therapeutics. Key advances include the discovery that small molecules can function as "molecular glues" and "bifunctional compounds" (PROTACs being a modern example) that promote protein–protein interactions, the co-discovery of mTOR and its role in nutrient-response signaling, the discovery of histone deacetylases and that chromatin marks regulate gene expression, the development and application of diversity-oriented synthesis to microbial therapeutics, and the discovery of vulnerabilities of cancer cells linked to genetic, lineage and cell-state features, including ferroptotic vulnerabilities. His notable awards include the Wolf Prize in Chemistry and the Arthur C. Cope Award. He earned his B.A. from the University of Virginia and his Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Steve Pagliuca brings decades of experience and enormous success as a private equity and biotech investor. As Executive Chair for Arena, he will provide insights into asset allocation, portfolio management, and company exit opportunities. He formerly served as co-chairman of Bain Capital, one of the world's leading private investment firms. He is a Managing General Partner and co-owner of the Boston Celtics, co-owner of the Italian football club Atalanta, member of the Harvard Business School Board of Dean's Advisors, and member of the Duke University Board of Trustees. Along with his wife Judy, he endowed the 15,000-square-foot Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab to incubate life-sciences and biotechnology start-ups. He received the Bright Star Award for recognition of his charitable activities and the American Dream Award from Habitat for Humanity for outstanding contributions to enhancing the Greater Boston Community. He serves as President of the Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation, former Chair of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC), and board member of Bain Capital Children's Charity. He has a B.A. from Duke University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Tom Cahill, M.D., Ph.D. is the founder and Managing Partner of Newpath Partners, a Boston-based life science venture fund. He is dedicated to aligning interests between academic scientists, investors, and management teams. He has launched over a dozen companies with Newpath as the founding investor for most of them. He is actively involved in numerous companies, including Myeloid Therapeutics, Prime Medicine, Chroma Medicine, Kojin Therapeutics, Orbital Therapeutics, Magnet Biomedicine, Kisbee Therapeutics, Aera Therapeutics, and Nvelop Therapeutics. Much of his time has also been devoted to non-profit and non-partisan groups including Scientists to Stop COVID-19 and the Personal Genetics Education Project. He has led and facilitated several international partnerships for underserved regions, including the Middle East, South America, and Asia. He earned his M.D. and Ph.D. from Duke University.

J. Keith Joung, M.D., Ph.D. previously held positions as the Robert B. Colvin, M.D. Endowed Chair in Pathology and a Pathologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, and member of the Center for Cancer Research and the Center for Computational and Integrative Biology at MGH. He has been a pioneer in the development of important technologies for targeted gene editing and epigenetic editing of human cells. He has received numerous awards including the 2023 American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Outstanding Achievement Award, the 2022 Samsung Ho-Am Prize in Medicine, an NIH Director's Pioneer Award, an NIH Director's Transformative Research Project R01 Award, the MGH Research Scholar Award (2011 and 2016), an NIH R35 MIRA (Maximizing Investigators Research Award), election into the American Association of University Pathologists, and designation as a "Highly Cited Researcher" for the past seven consecutive years (2016-2022) by Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics. He serves on the editorial boards of Cell Genomics, Genome Biology, Human Gene Therapy, and Trends in Biotechnology. He has co-founded multiple biotechnology companies including Beam Therapeutics, Chroma Medicine, Editas Medicine, Pairwise Plants, SeQure Dx, Inc., Verve Therapeutics, and Nvelop Therapeutics. He holds a Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard University, an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and an A.B. magna cum laude in biochemical sciences from Harvard College.

About Arena's Founding Investors

Steve Pagliuca has over 30 years of private equity investment experience in the healthcare space.

Michael Dell, founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies and founder of the Dell Medical School in Austin, Texas, is partnering with Arena to advance human biology and clinical translation.

Michael Chambers, founder and former CEO of Aldevron with more than 25 years of biomanufacturing experience, is partnering with Arena in next-gen biomanufacturing.

Jim Breyer, founder and CEO of Breyer Capital, former Managing Partner at Accel Partners and former board member of WalMart, Facebook, Dell, and many others, with more than 30 years of venture investing in technology and artificial intelligence (AI), will partner with Arena on AI, machine learning, and large language models to advance therapeutic discovery.

Elisabeth DeLuca is a philanthropist and former nurse with a passion for advancing healthcare and transformative medicines.

CONTACT: [email protected]

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