WHO WE ARE

We are a therapeutics company leveraging human milk biology to create new medicines to transform gut-brain axis (GBA) disorders with large populations underserved by current treatment options. Our initial drug candidates are based on bioactive oligosaccharides naturally produced in human milk, or HMOs, which directly modulate the immune system and other human cells, as well as the gut microbiome.

We believe our synthetic biology-manufactured human milk oligosaccharide, or HMO, drug candidates have the potential to affect multiple pathways implicated in GBA disorders and certain inflammatory disorders, while reproducing the favorable safety and tolerability profile observed of HMOs. We are prioritizing the development of our drug candidates for disorders where available treatment options are inadequately serving people living with GBA disorders due to safety or tolerability issues and where we have the potential to redefine the standard of care.

OUR SCIENCE

Human Milk Oligosaccharide Based Medicines

  • Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are the largest non-nutrient, bioactive component of human milk

    Comprising 200+ oligosaccharides, this abundance and diversity is not found in other mammals.
  • Our HMO-based medicines are identical to their equivalent HMOs, each of which possesses distinct bioactivity

    We are elucidating the immunological and microbiome benefits of distinct synthetic HMOs to develop as targeted new medicines for distinct gut-brain axis disorders.
  • Our Oligosaccharide Medicines (OMs) are synthetic biology produced HMOs

    Only recently, through synthetic biology, have individual HMO-equivalent OMs been produced at a scale sufficient for the therapeutic development of these molecules in gold-standard clinical trials and potential commercialization to be feasible.
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Management Team

Alex Martinez

CEO, Chairman & Co - Founder

An entrepreneur inspired to make a public health impact informed by his own patient journey.
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Jason Ferrone

COO, President & Co - Founder

An industry veteran with a unique combination of leadership experience across unlikely disciplines with a desire to innovate a culture aligned with the medicines we are developing.
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Emil Chuang

MB BS, (Syd), FRACP, Chief Medical Officer

Pediatric gastroenterologist with a passion for developing safe and effective medicines with broad potential to modulate the gut microbiome and be translated to both adults and children.
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Dustin Crawford

General Counsel, Senior Vice President, Legal and Corporate Development, and Corporate Secretary

A corporate and securities attorney that runs towards fire, advising boards and management teams of companies at all stages ranging from startup to Fortune 150 on financial and corporate matters ranging from the routine to the existential.
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Board of Directors

Alex Martinez
CEO, Chairman & Co - Founder
Jason Ferrone
COO, President & Co - Founder

Scientific Advisory Board

Angela Christiano, PhD
Professor at Columbia University Medical Center
David Newburg, PhD
One of the founding members of Glycosyn and the Chairman of Glycosyn Scientific Advisory Board
John McCoy, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer of Glycosyn
Ardythe Morrow, PhD
Professor of Epidemiology and Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

Medical Advisory Board

Brian Lacy, MD, PhD
Consultant and Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville
Anthony Lembo, MD
Director of the GI Motility and Functional Bowel Disorders Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA
Nicholas Talley, MD, PhD
Distinguished Laureate Professor & Director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Digestive Health at the University of Newcastle, Australia
Purna Kashyap, MB BS, PhD
Professor of Medicine and Physiology, Co- Director of the Microbiome program and High Definition Therapeutics program and Director of the germ-free mouse facility at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
Baharak Moshiree
Professor of Medicine and Director of Motility, in the Division of Gastroenterology at the University of North Carolina, Atrium Health, in Charlotte, NC
Daniel Lovell, MD
Associate Director, Division of Rheumatology & Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
Steve Hughes, MD
Chief Medical Officer at Arcturus Therapeutics