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Solid Tumors and Metastatic Cancer

Precision medicines which selectively attack cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue

Cancer remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide, affecting millions of people each year and imposing profound physical, emotional, and economic burdens. Patients and their families face immense challenges, including loss of income, emotional stress, and ongoing medical care. The global impact of cancer is immense, with rising incidence and high treatment costs highlighting the urgent need for new, more effective therapies that can improve survival and quality of life.

Our innovative platform utilizes advanced small molecule technology to engineer precision treatments that selectively attack cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue. We design highly specific targeting ligands that bind to proteins overexpressed in tumors, linking them to a potent payload which can be released intracellularly to eliminate the cancer. This approach allows our therapies to effectively differentiate between malignant and healthy tissue, which is key to reducing toxicity and improving therapeutic efficacy.

World Diseases

New mechanisms of action to treat diseases such as malaria and sickle cell disease

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a devastating inherited disorder that affects millions of people worldwide, particularly within the Black community. For patients with SCD, life is often marked by severe pain, frequent hospitalizations, and a significantly shortened life expectancy. Despite recent medical advances, the need for better, more accessible therapies that can truly improve a patient's quality of life remains urgent.

To meet this challenge, we are developing a new class of drugs that addresses the root cause of the disease's most painful symptoms. In SCD, red blood cells are fragile and can shatter as they move through the body, releasing harmful debris that forms dangerous clots in small blood vessels. These blockages cause the excruciating pain and organ damage known as vaso-occlusive events. Our therapy is designed to act as a molecular shield, strengthening the outer membrane of the sickle cells to prevent them from breaking apart. By keeping the red blood cells stable and intact, our goal is to stop the chain reaction that leads to clotting and blockages, ultimately preventing these painful crises and offering new hope to those battling sickle cell disease.

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Fibrotic Diseases

Precision medicines which selectively attack cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue

Fibrotic diseases, including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), chronic kidney disease, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), present significant global health challenges. These conditions profoundly impact patients' daily lives, highlighting the urgent need for enhanced diagnostics, equitable care, and novel therapies. Despite considerable research, efforts to reduce the morbidity of these diseases have yielded only moderate improvements.

Our innovative platform has engineered therapies designed to selectively accumulate in fibrotic tissue, selectively delivering drugs to halt disease progression. This targeted approach enables our treatments to effectively differentiate between actively fibrosing and healthy tissue, thereby reducing toxicity and enhancing therapeutic efficacy.

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Immune-Mediated Disorders

Compounds that reprogram immune cells to combat inflammation, cancer, and autoimmune disorders

The immune system is core to an array of life-damaging and life-threatening diseases from autoimmune and inflammatory diseases to cancer where complacent immune cells enable cancers to survive, grow, and spread.

Our breakthrough approach uses “molecular guides” to identify and reprogram specific classes of immune cells to modulate their activity, in the case of cancer enabling activation of immune cells to dismantle and destroy the tumor, or in the case of autoimmune diseases de-activating immune cells to prevent harmful inflammation. Because this mechanism is common across so many conditions, this dual-pronged approach offers a new horizon of hope for a wide range of debilitating illnesses—including rheumatoid arthritis, pulmonary fibrosis, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and psoriasis—with profound results already demonstrated in preclinical studies.

Regenerative Medicine

Drug-based strategies that promote tissue and organ repair, including bone and soft tissue regeneration.

Bone fractures represent a major global health burden, affecting millions of people each year and leading to significant pain, disability, and reduced quality of life. Beyond the immediate injury, fractures often result in long-term complications such as impaired mobility, loss of independence, and increased risk of subsequent fractures. In older adults, hip and vertebral fractures are particularly devastating, contributing to high rates of hospitalization, long-term care placement, and even increased mortality.

LIFT has developed a groundbreaking bone-targeting drug platform that precisely delivers therapeutic agents—including small molecules, peptides, and large molecules—directly to the site of bone fracture. This innovative approach is designed to promote more rapid healing with significantly fewer off-target safety concerns compared to conventional, non-targeted treatments. Our robust discovery pipeline is poised for rapid expansion across a range of skeletal therapeutic indications, including osteogenesis imperfecta, various types of fractures, spinal fusion, and other severe bone diseases. Preclinical studies have shown increases in bone density, strength, and healing directly where it's needed most.

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