A leader in red blood cell-based therapeutics
Scarlet Therapeutics is developing a pioneering platform that generates novel red blood cell-based therapeutics (tRBCs) to treat a wide range of diseases.
Born out of more than a decade of research at the University of Bristol and the learnings from the RESTORE clinical study, Scarlet’s technologies aim to address efficacy and manufacturing issues faced by others in the field by ensuring a high level of therapeutic proteins inside the tRBCs, enabling more efficacious and thus effective therapies and improving the manufacturing by being able to generate the tRBCs from cell lines rather than from donated stem cells.
A new modality that uses therapeutic red blood cells (tRBCs) to treat targets of high value and unmet need.
Scarlet Therapeutics is developing a proprietary platform that generates novel red blood cell-based therapeutics to potentially treat a wide range of diseases. Red blood cells have pervasive reach throughout the body and a long life of up to 120 days, and expressing therapeutic proteins inside the tRBCs keeps them hidden from the immune system. Previous attempts to develop therapeutic red blood cells have been hindered by 1) the level of therapeutic proteins contained in the red blood cells, thus impacting efficacy, and 2) the technical constraints around manufacturing these therapies. Scarlet’s technologies aim to address these issues by ensuring a high level of therapeutic proteins inside the tRBCs, enabling more efficacious and thus effective therapies and improving the manufacturing by being able to generate the tRBCs from cell lines rather than from donated stem cells.
Initially targeted at the rare metabolic diseases, hyperammonemia and hyperoxaluria, this approach could also be used more broadly to target other metabolic diseases, cancer and autoimmune diseases.
How we got here:
For two decades, our team has been at the forefront of blood cell therapy, driving world changing research. Scarlet was founded by world renowned blood scientists Professor Ash Toye and Professor Jan Frayne, at the University of Bristol, UK, following decades of research including the ground-breaking RESTORE study run by NHS Blood and Transplant and Bristol University, which is investigating transfusion of lab-grown blood into patients.
The science behind Scarlet’s technology has been proven in multiple peer-reviewed research studies, from developing a system for growing red blood cells in the lab through to proving that they can be packed with therapeutic enzymes that stay inside the red cell.
Find out more about our team, and our science.
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