Written by Divyan Bavan and Lillian Li, Co-Founders of Lytix
In the current state of the world, less people are dying before the age of 60 than ever before. Not just to 60, but well past 60 too. In our constant search to improve human life, we face new challenges with each advancement. Sanitation and antibiotics allowed us to live past 50, a healthy diet and new cancer treatments can allow us to live past 70. Now though, we’re faced with the biggest challenge yet: aging. By trying to solve this problem, we’re trying to let our older population experience youth again: playing sports, walking freely, and being able to take a fall.
This is what Lytix is trying to do. We’re a moonshot company that aims to solve aging by removing old cells from your body, reducing inflammation and improving lifespan. While many aging companies try to find “miracle drugs” to solve this problem, we offer a more specific route that will kill these old cells while keeping your healthy cells alive.
The Science
When cells are alive, there are three states they can be in: healthy, cancerous, and senescent. Ranking them, healthy cells are best, senescent cells are worse, and cancer cells are the worst. When our cells are healthy, they can perform their function in the organism while not harming other cells in the process. On the other hand, cancer cells are the opposite: they do not perform their function and deprive other cells of resources. Finally, senescent cells are like a defense mechanism to cancer cells. They don’t self-destruct, but instead just shut down.
However, these cells have just shut down their function; they are still metabolically active. This is apparent in their production of senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) proteins. These include inflammatory cytokines, which can negatively impact surrounding tissues and the immune system. When we are young, this isn’t an issue and the immune system can usually clear them out on its own. However, as we age, the amount of these cells increases significantly and the immune system can get overwhelmed. All of this can eventually lead to chronic pain and even organ failure, making this a problem worth solving.
Lytix’s Solution
Senescent cells have several characteristics that separate them from regular cells, including extracellular protein biomarkers. As these cells are stressed, they are known to upregulate stress-induced ligands, specifically NKG2D ligands. This makes them a target for natural killer cells that express NKG2D, the primary receptor for this ligand. Furthermore, cells express another biomarker: Urokinase-Type Plasminogen Activator Receptor (uPAR). This is an extracellular protein biomarker that can be used for identification of senescent cells.
At Lytix, our solution to the problem is using the differentiators of senescent cells to engineer the immune system for their removal. We use a novel system of chimeric antigen receptor NK (CAR-NK) cells to effectively target senescent cells throughout the body. This will help alleviate the major causes of aging-related diseases and let people live healthier lives.
What separates Lytix from other therapies for senescent cells is three things: specificity, generality, and safety. Unlike senolytic drugs which can lead to off-target effects on healthy cells, this therapy uses the specificity of the immune system, killing only the senescent cells. Furthermore, NK cells do not recognize haplotype when interacting with cells. This means that these cells will not cost nearly as much as similar CAR-T cells. Finally, NK cells have a very good safety profile, making them the ideal cell for therapeutics.
Market
The primary initial market for Lytix is the population of American individuals above 50 years old in approximately the top 5% of earners (earning around $300,000 a year) because the therapy will be quite costly. This market is expected to contain around 17 million people in the US. However, as the cost for Lytix treatment drops, the market will likely grow to include the top 10% income bracket in the US, which covers individuals earning around $200,000. This contains around 33 million people. Beyond the 10% income bracket, speculation is hard because how common CAR-NK cell therapy will be in the future is unpredictable. While it can be argued that this would increase the gap between rich and poor, we don’t see it like this. As we will outline in our strategy, the entire purpose of the company is to bring healthier lives to everyone. This temporary period of monetary imbalance is simply to gather the resources to make equality possible.
Strategy
What does the future look like for Lytix? In short, we want to eventually get this therapy to be affordable for the average person, able to be covered by their health insurance. To get here though, we need to become financially self-sustaining and have the resources to develop more affordable therapies. So here is the plan:
Year 1: Validate our solution with research and rigorous testing in animals, likely mice.
Years 2–4: Run human tests and apply for regulatory approval by the FDA. This is quite feasible, as the CAR-T cell therapy Breyanzi was recently approved. Due to public pressure for treatments of diseases like cancer, we expect that FDA approval for other CAR-NK and CAR-T cell therapies will roll in over these years.
Year 5: Receive approval and roll out the first products for $30,000 each. Reference the next section for a deeper dive into what the treatment will look like at this point. We’ll invest money into researching ways to precisely screen for the level of senescence in a body — methods include identifying the level of molecules such as SA-β-Gal which are upregulated in senescent cells.
Year 6+: Continue refining the treatment, lowering costs, and researching the precise screening of senescence so that repeated injections are possible. This will help create a more affordable therapy, ideally under $10,000. If possible, we will also seek regulatory approval from countries outside the US to expand internationally.
While affordability is key to our success, we will also make sure the effectiveness of the therapy never wavers and will become more successful as time goes on.
What a Lytix Treatment Would Look Like
Years 1–5 after FDA approval
Currently, it is not possible to screen someone’s body for the amount of senescent cells, so it would be unwise to give multiple injections as the excess of NK cells with no “work” to do in the body may have unknown side effects. Thus, for the first 5 years of operation, individuals above the age of 60 will be eligible to receive one injection of CAR-NK cells for a maximum of $30,000. The cost is predicted to drop to around $10,000 over these 5 years.
Years 5–10 after FDA approval
Screening for senescent cells will likely significantly improve at this point, and individuals above the age of 50 will be eligible for a screening. If their senescent cell count is above a certain level, then they will be eligible to receive an injection. Screenings can be done for anyone, and even after receiving an injection, individuals will be able to receive screenings as part of their regular full-body checkups with their family doctor so that they will have the option to receive another injection.
Beyond year 10 after FDA approval
At this point, screenings should be a part of checkups and most of the cost for Lytix treatment should be covered by insurance.
Why Now?
As first-world countries max out lifestyle developments, one of the largest barriers to human happiness is health. More specifically, the lifespan of people in developed countries is at an all-time high, meaning that we are stretching the limits of our bodies’ function. Thus, no matter how many diseases we cure, over the course of the human lifespan, if there is no way to target the source of the dysfunction — senescent cells — it will be impossible to keep trying to eliminate diseases as new ones crop up. As an analogy, it’s much more effective to kill a mosquito than coating your skin in AfterBite once it starts sucking your blood.
From the founders at Lytix, we are excited to build a future where 90 year olds can play basketball and exercise, without pain.
