MusiQ Bio, a biotechnology company co-founded by Rice alumnus Manwal Harb and Sina Khorsandi, an alumnus of UT Southwestern Medical Center, has been awarded approximately $2.6 million by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). The funding will support the clinical translation of the company’s new targeted, ultrasound-guided immunotherapy platform for metastatic breast cancer.
The establishment and success of MusiQ Bio results from a blend of academic discovery and life sciences entrepreneurship. As a doctoral student in Rice bioengineering professor Jerzy Szablowski’s lab, Harb developed noninvasive ultrasound-based approaches to deliver gene therapies to the brain. In addition to technical skills, working at the intersection of engineering, neuroscience, drug delivery, and translational medicine in a brand-new lab gave him valuable training in scientific, financial and regulatory aspects of establishing a research enterprise from the ground up, which he leveraged to launch a successful career in biotech.
“I was lucky enough to be mentored by Jerzy,” Harb said. “Watching and helping him set up the lab gave me a front-row seat on how to develop innovative technologies with the utmost scientific rigor and how to translate them into real-world therapies that can improve patients’ lives.”
Subsequently, as Executive Vice President of Operations for Nucleate and founder of its Texas chapter and regional accelerator program, Harb helped build Texas's life sciences ecosystem. Harb and Khorsandi connected through Nucleate and united forces to bring together the foundational research Khorsandi was conducting at UT Southwestern with the ultrasound engineering capabilities Harb had developed at Rice to create MusiQ Bio.
CPRIT grant accelerates the path to clinical trials
“Receiving this CPRIT award is an incredible validation of what our team has been building at MusiQ Bio,” said Harb, co-founder and CEO of MusiQ Bio. “Some of the most promising medicines fail not because the drug doesn't work, but because we can't get enough of it to the right place without affecting the surrounding healthy tissues or organs. At MusiQ Bio, we believe that drug delivery needs to be engineered with the same precision as the drugs themselves. So, we engineered microbubbles that carry therapeutic payloads to specific cells inside the tumors and then are activated with ultrasound.”
Their preclinical studies, published in premier scientific journals like Nature Nanotechnology and Advanced Science, demonstrate that this delivery method substantially increases targeted delivery of the drug inside the tumors, improving therapeutic response and overall survival in animals with minimal effects on the surrounding healthy tissues.
“CPRIT’s support gives us the opportunity to take a technology that began as an academic discovery and move it significantly closer to patients,” added Harb. “With these funds we can advance manufacturing, safety, large-animal studies and regulatory development in collaboration with UT Southwestern Medical Center and build our own clinical translation program.”