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Arvinas is a pioneer in bringing directed protein degradation to patients and making currently undrugged targets tractable. The company was founded in 2013 by Professor Craig Crews. The underlying technology was invented by the Crews lab — proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs). Craig Crews is the epitome of a great inventor whose work not only explores nature but creates new tools to improve human health. The hallmark of a great inventor is the ability to be successful in multiple fields of study — being able to be a leader in proteostasis is important but then going onto develop tools to control it is incredible; that’s what the Crews lab did. Even before proteostasis, Craig was world-class in the study of signal transduction. Before Arvinas, Crews had co-founded Proteolix to develop proteosome inhibitors. The drug Proteolix set off with, carfilzomib (Kyprolis) was approved by the FDA for multiple myeloma — used in over 80K patients. Ultimately, Proteolix was acquired by Onyx Pharmaceuticals, which was then acquired by Amgen in 2013 for over $10B. Crews was in the perfect position, financially and experientially, to take on a larger technical risk with Arvinas. PROTACs have been ~15 years in the making and Arvinas paved the way for other degraders to come to market (i.e. molecular glues)…
