In August of 2024 co-founders Kayj Shannon and Melanie Matheu, PhD founded Lyric Bio, Inc. The two have been developing Lyric’s thesis since February of 2024 when Melanie (Founder and CTO of Prellis Biologics, Inc.) reached out to Kayj to discuss a revolutionary approach to manufacturing therapeutics that have no established manufacturing approach.
“I’ve known Melanie and the Prellis team for several years and have always been incredibly impressed with their technology and the impact it could have across several different biopharma applications,” says Shannon (CEO of Lyric Bio). “When Melanie reached out to discuss spinning a new company out of Prellis, I knew we had the opportunity to build something incredible.”
As the inventor of the technology, Melanie (CSO of Lyric Bio) knew that the ultra-fast high resolution 3D printing technology developed at Prellis could be used in applications beyond the company's current focus, but exploration of other topics were shelved in the beginning of the COVID pandemic.
“It became crystal clear,” says Matheu, “that the nearest real-world application of our technology was in leveraging the immune system for rapid human antibody discovery.” Prellis has gone on to demonstrate the feasibility of rapid fully human antibody discovery against both pathogens and native human proteins making it a tremendously powerful engine for drug discovery and development.
However, both Melanie and the Prellis leadership team agree there’s a lot more that can be done. “It’s difficult to overstate the impact of being able to query the adaptive human immune response in vitro,” says Matheu. “This only scratches the surface of what our technology is capable of, there are numerous tissue engineering applications outside of Prellis’s current focus.” And thus Matheu’s attention turned to developing additional applications for the ultra-fast high-resolution 3D bioprinting. After a thorough review, she landed on disrupting a much overlooked therapeutics space that she and Shannon have coined “Complex Therapeutics”. Shannon and Mattheu recognized the rare opportunity to disrupt a large market while making a meaningful impact in health care immediately.
The problem lies in current production methods for “Complex Therapeutics”. A critical component of the biotech revolution was the ability to produce proteins in bioreactors, allowing biotech companies to move away from collecting these therapeutics from animals.
However, this didn’t work for all therapies. “Several life-saving treatments are too complex to be manufactured with existing technologies. For these ‘Complex Therapeutics’, such as human Immunoglobulin therapy, stem cell based therapies, and blood transfusions, we’re still entirely dependent on human donation,” says Shannon. “Human donation is an expensive, inefficient and unstable supply source, but despite this, each of these therapies makes up a multi-billion dollar market.”
To address the supply issue with Complex Therapeutics, Lyric Bio has its sights set on developing high-density bioreactors that provide 3D cellular niches that mimic human tissues. “It’s a surface area to volume ratio problem,” says Matheu. “In mammalian physiology, truly any multicellular organism, physiologic efficiency is maximized by fine-tuning the surface area to volume ratio anywhere this exchange takes place. It’s easy to overlook that if you flatten out human lungs, their surface area would cover an entire tennis court; it’s the three dimensional nature of the tissue that allows such high efficiency in a smaller volume.” Lyric bioreactors will leverage Prellis’ 3D bioprinting technology which can print features that match the fine size of native tissues, enabling Lyric’s bioreactors to support cell densities approaching those found in human tissue.
Lyric’s initial focus is a worthy one: the team will be tackling production of human immunoglobulin, a $15B market facing issues of limited supply. The team is confident in their success, bolstered by the head-start provided by existing technology and know-how from Prellis. “Data from Prellis shows that they’ve already achieved the cell densities we need for a commercially viable product,” says Shannon. “If you combine this with known B cell immunoglobulin secretion from the literature, you end up with a process that could be 10-100x less expensive than collecting human plasma.” A scalable manufacturing process for human immunoglobulin would be a huge relief for patients and physicians who have had to contend with limited access to therapies due to an unstable supply of human plasma.
“In the end,” says Matheu, “it’s all about giving human cells the ability to thrive in the environment they evolved to inhabit. I think enabling access to true human biology and physiology in the lab is the next horizon for biomedical advancement. I’m looking forward to using new technologies to ensure patients’ access to life saving therapies.”
Lyric has a unique opportunity to apply proven science in new ways and solve critical issues facing not only multi-billion dollar markets, but also patients who rely on Complex Therapeutics. But the company hopes to go further. “A cost efficient and scalable manufacturing process is just the beginning,” says Shannon. “We’re hoping our manufacturing process will enable innovation for Complex Therapeutics as well.” Lyric’s team is optimistic that solving the supply bottleneck and creating a controlled manufacturing process will set off a new wave of innovation, much like the first Biotech Revolution.
About the Author:
Grace Otos is a second year student at Caltech studying biochemistry. She is currently at Lyric Bio Inc. as an intern and is excited to be participating in the advancement of Lyric’s impactful technology. She is passionate about using her education and research experience to advance the field of human biology and medicine.