Lumen | My WordPress Blog

We’ve Reinvented How Biologic
Drugs Are Made

Lumen’s patented technology allows us to use the well-known food algae spirulina to deliver therapeutic proteins.

Unrivaled Speed, Safety, And
Effectiveness

Our patented technology allows us to develop biologic drugs faster and with lower cost and risk than traditional methods.

$84M

Invested To Date

33

Issued Patents

19

Other Patents Pending

More About Our Science

How It Works

01

The Organism

Being extraordinarily high in soluble protein, spirulina cells are able to express far higher amounts of therapeutic proteins than any other food crop (>60%).

02

Engineering

A gene encoding the therapeutic molecule (for example, an antibody) is introduced into the spirulina chromosome.

03

Production

The production system requires only water, salt, CO2 and light, so it is cheap and rapidly scalable.

04

Delivery

This powder can be packed into dose-speciﬁc capsules, which don't require refrigeration and are shelf-stable at room temperature.

Neglected No More

Many highly prevalent diseases have proven impossible to treat with traditional drug-making tools, despite decades of research, so they’ve been essentially abandoned by drug makers. Lumen’s unique technology is ideally suited to finally address these indications.

C. difficile

$8B

Problem for US hospitals annually

2.3%

Of all US hospital costs annually

Covid-19

50%

of patients endure significant GI symptoms

25%

of patients reported only GI symptoms

IBD

3M

Americans currently living with IBD

ZERO

therapies for mild-to-moderate Crohn's

Metabolic Disease

No.1

Cause of death in the world

47M

Americans living with metabolic disease

Traveler's diarrhea

50M

travelers at risk annually

29%

affliction rate in US servicemembers

See Our Pipeline

Pipeline

Our lead program is azelaprag, a potential first-in-class oral therapeutic for obesity, followed by several earlier-stage metabolic programs

Disease Area

Mode of Action

MOA Previously
Demonstrated

Preclinical Phase 1
(safety) Phase 2
(proof of
concept) Phase 3
(definitive
efficacy)

Research &
Funding
Partners

Core pipeline

Obesity

Oral biologic

C. difficile (LMN-201)

Oral biologic cocktail

Product Candidate

C. difficile Colitis

(Clostridioides difficile)

Initiated Spring 2018

Mode of action: Cocktail of biologics; two formats

Phase 1

Traditionally considered a hospital-acquired infection, C. difficile is more commonly community - required today. For this reason, the shelf-stable, orally delivered format of Lumen’s product is an important addition to the tool kit for treating and preventing this disease. Long-term consequences include chronic diarrhea, severe intestinal inflammation, surgical resection, and death. Insidiously, the very thing that is used to treat this infection—broad spectrum antibiotics—is also the thing that causes the disease. . C. difficile therefore appears at the top of the CDC’s antimicrobial threats list year after year, and in 2009 was estimated to single-handedly drive 2.3% of all US hospital costs.

IBD (Crohn’s/UC)

Oral biologic cocktail

Product Candidate

IBD

(Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis)

Initiated Summer 2021

Mode of action: Biologic cocktail

Preclinical

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a systemic autoimmune disease, but it has an obvious nexus with the gastrointestinal tract. The two main sub-varieties—Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis—have many available treatments on the market today, but it remains a major unmet medical need: current treatments are costly, require inconvenient injection delivery, and come with severe side effects. There are no approved therapies at all for mild-to-moderate Crohn’s. A safe, affordable, orally delivered drug to root out IBD at its source is a straightforward application of Lumen's technology, and would constitute a major advance for the field.

Kidney stone disease

Oral biologic cocktail

Product Candidate

Metabolic Disease

(Cardiometabolic Disease)

Initiated Spring 2021

Mode of action: Metabolic signaling

Preclinical

Cardiometabolic disease (CMD)—a cluster of related conditions that includes obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease—afflicts hundreds of millions of people worldwide, and the associated health and economic burdens continue to grow. An estimated 17.9 million people died from CMD in 2019, representing nearly a third of all global deaths. Of these deaths, 85% were due to heart attack and stroke. Today, over three quarters of deaths from cardiovascular diseases take place in low- and middle-income countries. Lumen is collaborating with Novo Nordisk, a global leader in CMD, to develop metabolically active molecules produced and delivered using spirulina.

Innovation pipeline

Gastroenteritis

Antibody coctail

Influenza & Covid-19

Intranasal biologic

Product Candidate

Covid-19

(SARS-CoV-2)

Initiated Summer 2020

Mode of action: Neutralizing antibody cocktail

IND Prep

Covid-19 is widely known as a respiratory disease, but its GI symptoms are well documented. The now-famous ACE2 receptor is abundantly expressed on the cells lining the GI tract, and over half of Covid-19 sufferers show symptoms of GI distress, and up to a quarter show only GI symptoms. GI infection by the virus can have serious long-term effects, and high enteric viral loads are thought to contribute to fatalities from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and wet-lung disease. Lumen’s Covid-19 product is designed to block GI infection and rapidly flush the virus from the GI tract, thereby reducing disease symptoms and potentially reducing transmission rates.

Malaria

Intranasal vaccine