Date: Nov 20, 2018 Author: Renee Shenton Source: (
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Last month, Breakout Labs funded Orion BioScience, a Nebraska-based, biotechnology company focused on autoimmune disease, including Type-1 Diabetes (T1D) and Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO). Autoimmune diseases affect 50M Americans each year. The company's unique approach could stop disease before it ever develops into debilitating symptoms.
Autoimmune disease develops when the immune system turns its attention inappropriately towards healthy cells of the body. Normally, the immune system is taught to ignore "self" through a set of biological mechanisms called peripheral tolerance. Tolerance quiets down autoreactive immune cells, rendering them anergic. When there is a breakdown in peripheral tolerance, these autoreactive immune cells can enter circulation and attack healthy tissue, resulting in autoimmunity.
Autoimmune diseases develop over time and most patients display "predisease" markers before they are diagnosed with the disease. However, existing treatments are mostly focused on alleviating the resulting sickness in affected organ systems (e.g. blood glucose management in T1D), rather than preventing its development.
Fitting neatly between an ounce of prevention and a pound of cure, Orion BioScience wants to start treating patients in the "predisease" stage. The company has created a 'Soluble Antigen Array' (SAgA) technology to reeducate the immune system by presenting markers of healthy cells in a way that once again induces anergy, promotes peripheral tolerance and restores health. Breakout Labs funding will extend positive preclinical results inT1D supported by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund (JDRF) to preclinical work in NMO.
Orion BioScience was founded by Dr. Joshua Sestak and Prof. Cory Berkland and the company is based out of Omaha, Nebraska.
