Please welcome Somite Therapeutics, the AI-powered cell replacement therapy platform
Meet Somite, the latest addition to Lerer Hippeau’s portfolio.
HQ: Boston, MA
Founders: Olivier Pourquie (Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and of Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital), Allon Klein (Associate Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School), Cliff Tabin (Professor and Chair of Genetics at Harvard Medical School), Jonathan Rosenfeld (Head of the Fundamental Foundation AI group at MIT FutureTech), and Micha Breakstone (a PhD in Cognitive Science, an AI entrepreneur who previously sold Chorus.ai for $575m)
The problem: In recent years, treatments for human diseases and injuries have proliferated, but progress hasn’t gone far enough. The promise of stem cell therapies, in particular, has offered hope to many patients, and advancements in the field of stem cell therapeutics, which aim to treat medical conditions by replacing missing, damaged, or otherwise diseased cells, has made huge strides. But, despite the fact that stem cell research has unlocked new methods for the production of multiple human cell types, many of the more than 200 types of cells found in the human body remain elusive, and existing protocols vary widely in efficiency, scalability, and robustness. While cell replacement therapies are on the verge of becoming an integral therapeutic modality, there are still none in the marketplace today.
Somite.ai’s solution: Somite.ai is on a mission to transform the lives of millions of people by leveraging AI to produce human tissue for cell-based therapies. The company’s transformative approach rests on three key insights: (1) that the somite cell can develop into a large number of therapeutically relevant cell types and address a range of clinical indications; (2) that biomedical research has advanced to the point where we now have enough information on how cell types develop; and (3) that advancements in AI can be applied to develop a deeper understanding of embryonic events and can optimize use of this information to guide cell development. To that end, Somite.ai is developing a computational model that simulates real embryos. This proprietary “digital twin,” which is constructed from data-rich sources such as gene expression databases, allows Somite.ai to surface actionable insights and quickly iterate on protocols. Within the next two years, the company plans to introduce its first therapy to phase-1 clinical trials.
Origin story: In 2015 and 2016, Olivier published two research papers that represented breakthrough discoveries in how somites can be used for cell replacement therapies in an efficient manner. Concurrently, Allon and a team of researchers at Harvard Medical School succeeded in integrating a number of new tools (borrowed from a range of disciplines, including molecular biology and computer science), allowing them to develop programs that plot how cells grow into tissues and organs. Their research allowed them to move beyond expert-driven science into the realm of data science. Then, in late 2023, Olivier, Allon, Cliff, Jonathan and Micha met in a lab and determined that there was a real opportunity to combine their expertise and experience, to apply these recent breakthroughs in stem cell research, and to develop a truly novel cell replacement therapy leveraging digital twins.
Why we’re betting on it: There is a very wide range of conditions that involve a loss of somite-derived cell populations, all of which can be treated using cell replacement therapy. These include common metabolic diseases, like diabetes and obesity, as well as conditions like muscular dystrophy, incontinence, muscular injuries, severe burns, and connective tissue syndromes. Somite.ai is the only company that can effectively differentiate somite-derived cells and that has the ability to leverage data and cutting-edge AI to optimize the protocols that produce these cells. The fact is, there is no other lab in operation today that can produce somites at the company’s level of efficiency and accuracy. Moreover, the Somite.ai founding team is composed of some of the leading minds in biomedicine and AI today. We couldn’t be more excited and proud to partner with the Somite.ai team as they develop cell products that will usher in a revolution in cell replacement therapies and alleviate numerous forms of human suffering.
Our take: We believe that the future of medicine and the treatment of diseases and injuries exists at the point where biology and AI intersect. The AI frenzy, in our opinion, has heated to such a point that any company which leverages AI is deemed to be novel and innovative. We have chosen to take a more judicious, skeptical approach to evaluating AI opportunities, by focusing our efforts on companies that use AI to advance technologies that have the potential to usher in sea change. In addition, we have always been interested in companies whose mission is oriented around access. That cell replacement therapies have the potential to treat human diseases and injuries has been widely known for some time, but no company has figured out a way to efficiently develop protocols and bring them to market. Somite.ai’s use of somites to develop the correct cells represents the most sophisticated cell replacement therapy ever invented. The Somite.ai team understands precisely how to build off of recent advancements in biomedicine and AI. We believe they are cracking the code that will give infinite patients chances at better and healthier lives.
Further reading: “This Startup Wants To Be OpenAI Of Stem Cell Therapy, Targets $250B Market” via Forbes
