Our Science
Developing an end-to-end solution to discover new drug targets and enabling biomarkers for chronic and progressive diseases
Our Approach
As our collective understanding of disease continues to grow at an exponential rate, it has become evident that the transition from health to disease is not a single inflection point; rather, the health-to-disease axis is a continuum that ranges from early, silent stages to advanced, debilitating, and often irreversible states.
At Etiome, we believe that understanding the dynamics underlying the biology of disease progression enables the development of Biostaged Medicines – medicines designed for specific stages of disease and delivered to the right patients at the right time to slow, prevent, or reverse progression.
We have shown, for the first time and across multiple conditions, that previously unappreciated windows of disease progression can be defined by temporally distinct changes in molecular and cellular programs. Our proprietary AI-driven methods allow us to characterize each stage of disease, even the early stages that occur before the appearance of outward physiological manifestations or obvious symptoms. This approach enables the identification and validation of stage-specific targets that underpin therapeutic development.
Temporal Biodynamics™ Platform
With access to deep, multimodal population-scale data, vast patient sample repositories, and single-cell multi-omics, we can now identify novel disease targets and biomarkers that will fuel the development of transformative preemptive medicines. Our Temporal Biodynamics™ platform precisely characterizes the molecular and cellular stages of disease progression, enabling high-accuracy patient staging and the creation of targeted medicines designed to alter the course of diseases, even at their earliest stages.
Process & Platform Overview
Changing the way disease is studied and characterized to improve treatment paradigms
Our Temporal Biodynamics™ platform leverages complex clinical, cellular and molecular data to characterize biology at scale and over time, quickly uncovering the temporal biodynamics of disease progression without the need for protracted longitudinal studies. This enables us to confidently identify therapeutically relevant stage-specific targets and biomarkers, facilitating the development of Biostaged Medicines for critical intervention windows where they can be most effective.
How It Works
Step 1: Predict the Right Time
Leverage artificial intelligence to forecast when individuals are likely to progress further into disease
We have developed proprietary algorithms and software that can analyze real-world, population-level data to map individuals along a broad spectrum of health and disease substages. This provides a deep understanding of health dynamics over time across major disease areas. We have also gathered unique cellular and molecular data from biospecimens across all stages of disease, including early, silent substages, collected through enhanced forecasting-enabled studies. These data and derived biological characterization are critical for the discovery of Biostaged Medicines and efficient clinical translation.
Step 2: Biostage the Right Patients
Characterize the continuum of disease and identify biomarkers to stratify patients across disease stages
Our proprietary phenotype-aware AI integrates multi-modal datasets to isolate and uncover underlying temporal shifts in thousands of genes specific to each disease. The newly discovered biological shifts characterizing the continuous biology of a disease reveal stage-specific, disease-modifying targets and biomarkers that indicate where a patient resides along the disease spectrum. Equipped with these markers of progression, we can more precisely pinpoint individuals most likely to benefit from stage-specific interventions.
Step 3: Intervene with the Right Targets
Identify and develop Biostaged Medicines
With a detailed understanding of disease substages, we can identify drivers of and protectors against disease progression to inform the development of Biostaged Medicines. Our custom-built, proprietary assays, informed by these dynamic biological representations, enable us to validate these potentially transformative therapeutics and advance them toward clinical use to ensure the right patients get the right medicines at the right time.
Applications
We are initially focused on addressing serious and progressive conditions within cardiometabolic and neurodegenerative disease areas.
We aim to apply our platform to conditions that impact large populations with a significant unmet need, long periods of progression, and clear opportunities to provide benefits to patients through stage appropriate disease targets and biomarkers.