Engitix

Engitix is a biopharmaceutical company that has developed a proprietary human extracellular matrix (ECM) drug discovery platform for identifying new therapeutic targets and biomarkers for fibrosis and solid tumors. The company's core technology uses patient-derived, organ- and disease-specific ECM scaffolds to create more physiologically relevant 3D cell culture models, which aim to improve the accuracy of predicting the efficacy of therapeutic candidates.

The company was founded in 2016 by Dr. Giuseppe Mazza and Professor Massimo Pinzani as a spin-out from University College London (UCL) to commercialize pioneering research conducted at UCL's Institute for Liver and Digestive Health. Dr. Mazza, who serves as CEO, conducted his foundational research in Professor Pinzani's laboratory, where he developed novel protocols to create human biological scaffolds from decellularized tissues. Professor Pinzani is a renowned clinical and translational hepatologist who has pioneered research in the mechanisms of liver fibrosis. The company was established to build upon this research and address the limitation of a lack of human ECM in experimental models, which has hindered the development of effective treatments.

Engitix's business model involves both developing an in-house pipeline of drug candidates and forming strategic collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The company generates revenue through these partnerships, which include upfront payments, milestone eligibility, and royalties on commercialized products. Notable collaborations include a multi-programme agreement with Takeda to develop therapies for advanced fibrotic liver diseases and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and a partnership with Dompé farmaceutici that leverages Dompé's AI-supercomputing platform, Exscalate, to accelerate drug discovery. The company has raised over $60 million in funding from investors such as Netherton Investments and Dompé.

The platform itself integrates an extensive bioarchive, one of the world's largest ECM databases, and the proprietary 'Engitomix' bioinformatics platform to analyze data and prioritize targets. By using human-derived ECM, Engitix aims to create models that more accurately represent the natural microenvironment of human cells, thereby de-risking and accelerating the drug discovery process for conditions like liver fibrosis, pancreatic cancer, and IBD.

Keywords: extracellular matrix, drug discovery platform, fibrosis, solid tumors, 3D cell culture, tissue engineering, biopharmaceutical, target identification, biomarker discovery, regenerative medicine, liver disease, oncology, human in vitro models, bioinformatics, preclinical models, drug development, organ-specific scaffolds, patient-centric, Takeda partnership, Dompé collaboration