Morphoceuticals is a TechBio company that uses AI-driven technology to modulate ion channels and bioelectric signaling for tissue repair and disease treatment. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Morphoceuticals CEO Jim Jenson to gain a deeper understanding of the company.
Jim Jenson’s Background
What is Jim Jenson’s background? Jenson said:
“I was originally a PhD protein chemist at Cornell Medical College and have been in the pharma/biotech industries for 35 years. I started with big pharma, (Roche/Schering A.G.) developing drugs for auto-immune disease and Multiple Sclerosis (Betaseron).”
“Morphoceuticals is now my 5th new biotech that has been spun out of academic institutions, one of which was Dicerna. I’m drawn to Morphoceuticals because this approach provides an extraordinary opportunity to unlock an ancient biology, a higher-level-omics, above proteomics and transcriptomics, involved in the control of tissue repair, and that is inaccessible via other therapeutic modalities, and still largely untapped by pharma.”
“It is a privilege to do so together with the exceptional groups Michael Levin, Vannevar Bush (Professor of Biology in the School of Arts and Sciences), and David Kaplan (Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering), both of Tufts University who successfully demonstrated limb regeneration in an African clawed frog in early 2022. Both scientists have made significant advances with their research that we believe can translate to real impact for patients in need.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Jenson shared:
“Our scientific co-founders,Drs. Mike Levin and David Kaplan, are world-leaders in the field with breakthrough research. It is through their research and expertise that the company came together.”
“We are building an atlas of the bioelectrome using our world-first suite of model systems and proprietary AI techniques.”
“The bioelectrome is the set of communication networks within the body that bind multi-cellular collectives together for a common purpose, maintaining tissue and organ level integrity and health. It is ancient and highly conserved, yet largely untapped for therapeutic uses. We understand the bioelectrome as a form of non-neural cognition with its own agency and memory, that can enable us to direct cells to construct specific structures or repair damaged tissue. By understanding and manipulating these bioelectric patterns, we can potentially rewrite them for the treatment of patients with many conditions that are currently inadequately addressed by other modalities.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Jenson reflected:
“I joined the company at the end of 2023. I have enjoyed building and collaborating with our first-rate team of scientists toward something that has the potential to be revolutionary in modern medicine.”
“It has been extraordinary to see some of the advances we’ve made in the last two years. We’ve assembled the toolkit required to build an atlas of the bioelectrome, have developed a proprietary platform that we can leverage to continue visualizing bioelectric patterns in normal and disease states and work toward POC in disease states later next year. We have also further grown our team.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Jenson explained:
“Morphoceuticals has built a proprietary platform based on the first atlas of the bioelectrome. This has the potential to enable therapies for conditions that are inadequately addressed by existing therapeutic strategies. Our approach provides extraordinary opportunity to develop a higher-level-omics, above proteomics and transcriptomics, for novel discoveries beneficial to human health.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Jenson and the team face in building the company? Jenson acknowledged:
“We are exploring white space in biology. With the science continuing to develop, there is an immense amount to learn and will involve the generation of vast amounts of data for different tissues and normal vs. disease states. Development of the atlas [of the bioelectrome] requires us to employ the tools of multi-omics, electrophysiology and machine learning to generate a voltage atlas of the body and a map of its druggable components. Fortunately, our scientific cofounders and our scientific team have made significant advances with their research that we believe can translate to real impact for patients in need.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Jenson noted:
“The company has evolved from a purely virtual entity, with seed funding, to an operational entity with a team that now employs the tools of multi-omics, electrophysiology and machine learning to generate a voltage atlas of the body and a map of its druggable components. We have built the team with experts in fields relevant to our greater vision, who have enabled this evolution of our technology. We assembled the toolkit that allows for us to build the atlas. We’ve also been applying predictions from our AI simulator to proprietary model systems.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Jenson cited:
“We have nearly completed the development of our platform, based on the first-ever atlas of the bioelectrome, which can predict bioelectric patterns in tissue over space and time. Our biggest achievement since launching is that we have mapped the bioelectric components in the kidney and liver, which is a critical first step in our pursuit of therapeutic intervention.”
“We’ve also build out our team and recently announced that industry powerhouse Dr. Roger Pomerantz has joined Morphoceuticals as Chair of the Board of Directors.”
Funding
When asking Jenson about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“Morphoceuticals is currently engaged with long-term horizon backers committed to company’s growth and success. We have raised over $15 million in seed-funding, initially led by Juvenescence and Prime Movers Lab, to assemble our proprietary platform that will enable us to develop a novel therapeutic pipeline.”
“We are currently seeking a $10 million bridge that will enable us to expand the atlas and develop POC in disease models, predicting electroceutical interventions to produce a desired target bioelectric state in ex-vivo and in-vivo models.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Jenson affirmed:
“To our knowledge, no company has sought to do what Morphoceuticals is doing today. Morphoceuticals is an industry leader as the first established company pursuing a platform that that unlocks the bioelectrome for therapeutic strategies. There’s significant appeal in that.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Jenson emphasized:
“Our current focus is on completing development of our platform, based on the first atlas of the bioelectrome. From there, we will follow the science to develop a pipeline of novel therapeutics for degenerative disease and organ failure.”
“In the coming year, we hope to generate preliminary bioelectric simulations using our dataset from normal states. We’ll analyze our first functional bioelectric data from ischemia, liver fibrosis and CKD models compared to normal to develop comparative maps in normal and disease state. This will lead, near-term, to POC in normal tissue, and ultimately, disease models.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Jenson concluded:
“TechBio companies are developing scientific solutions using key elements from AI and other technological advances to drive discovery models. Morphoceuticals platform is based on proprietary AI systems, combined with bioelectric profiling and multi-omics. We’re excited about the possibilities that can derive from our technology-driven approach.”
