Pepper Bio Emerges from Stealth with ‘Waze for Drug Discovery’ Technology

Pepper Bio, the world’s first transomics drug discovery company, emerges from stealth today to leverage its proprietary transomics -- including phosphoproteomics -- data translation technology to discover new drugs, rediscover new uses for existing therapeutics, and rescue drugs that may be on a course toward failing. 

Drug discovery is often a bad bet for pharma. Pepper Bio significantly reduces that risk. 

Currently, the successful development of a new therapy is estimated to cost around $2.6 billion on average and last over a decade through a variety of failed and successful trials. Because of the high cost and risks involved, many diseases will go untreated because of their low expected return on investment in drugs that may work. With hundreds of thousands of therapeutics candidates being evaluated each year, 86 percent of clinical trials of drug candidates fail to earn FDA approval, according to a new study from the MIT Sloan School of Management. More than 30 percent of drugs entering Phase II clinical trials fail to progress, and 58 percent of drugs fail in Phase III. These end-stage studies commonly cost upward of hundreds of millions of dollars for manufacturing, clinical trial design, implementation, and data analysis.  

“From my experience as a drug development strategist, many therapeutic programs were killed simply because they would have cost too much with an inadequate return on investment,” said Jon Hu, co-founder and CEO, Pepper Bio. “These are very difficult decisions because they are made with the understanding that many people who may benefit from these potential new drugs would never have that opportunity. We founded Pepper Bio in order to significantly improve the volume, quality, and accuracy of the data analysis used to evaluate opportunities for novel new therapeutics. We empower our drug discovery partners with a much higher level of informed confidence. Ultimately, our work will result in many more drug development initiatives going forward to help people around the world struggling with diseases that are left untreated today.”   

A first in drug discovery, Pepper Bio and their partners make significantly more informed strategic decisions by relying on more accurately analyzed data. This allows them to develop therapeutics that treat diseases at their root cause, have less toxicity and higher response rates with patients exhibiting fewer symptoms. Already, Pepper Bio has demonstrated proof of concept of the company’s proprietary platform across three therapeutic areas: Neurodegenerative, Oncology, and Inflammatory.

Pepper Bio’s proprietary capability to translate multiple levels of complex transomic data unlocks a new level of sophistication in drug discovery, much like Waze leverages multiple layers of data to direct travelers on the optimal and safe road to their destination. Pepper Bio identifies how and why novel drug candidates may or may not be effective in specific patient populations and diseases, directing drug discovery initiatives toward the most promising disease targets and patients who will be helped most with reduced side effects.  

The success of Pepper Bio is rooted in the company’s proprietary capacity to access and analyze transomic data leveraging three pillars of the field: Global (1), comprehensive data from the entire biological system are analyzed to determine functional (2) characteristics of intercellular biologic activity. Multiple omic layers, including phosphoproteomics, the layer at the top of the biotech stack, are analyzed. By analyzing all layers combined, Pepper Bio empowers drug developers to identify and reach accurate, much more informed causal (3) inferences. 

“Pepper Bio is working to ensure that the right therapeutics and combinations of drugs are developed in a precise, effective, efficient, and safe manner. Our proprietary capacity to translate complex transomic data into meaningful, evidence-based guidance for drug discovery programs significantly improves the likelihood of success for clinical trials. This promises to conserve many millions of dollars that may otherwise be funneled into traditional methods of research and development,” said Samantha Dale Strasser, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Pepper Bio. 

The industry moving towards transomics is inevitable and Pepper Bio is leading the way.” said Omri Amirav Drory, General Partner at NFX, an investor in Pepper Bio. NFX was an early backer of biotech companies such as Mammoth Biosciences and c2i genomics.

CEO Jon Hu is experienced in pharmaceutical research and development (Shire Pharmaceuticals), corporate strategic consulting (Bain & Company), and venture capital (Guild Capital). Hu earned his Bachelor’s degrees in biomedical engineering and economics, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. CSO Samantha Dale Strasser, Ph.D., developed the foundation of Peppe Bio’s technology during her time as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she earned her Doctorate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She earned her Master’s Degree in M.Phil in Physics at the University of Cambridge as a Churchill Scholar and her Bachelor’s degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University. 

Mr. Hu and Dr. Strasser are joined by Christopher Nicholson, Ph.D., Head of Biology, and Caitlin Brown, Ph.D., Head of Business Development. Dr. Nicholson earned his doctorate from Newcastle University and was a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and MGH. Dr. Brown earned her doctorate from Brown University.

Pepper Bio announced its scientific and strategic advisory board members today: Douglas Lauffenberger, Ph.D., Professor, MIT; Founder, Biological Engineering, MIT.; Dean Felsher, MD, Ph.D., Professor, Oncology, Stanford; Director, Translational Research, Stanford. Imran Nasrullah, JD, VP & Head, Open Innovation Center, North America – East, Bayer; Former Director, Strategic Partnering  & Business Development & Licensing,  Boehringer-Ingelheim. Tom Rush, Ph.D., Chief R&D Officer, Variant Bio; Former US Lead, Functional Genomics, GlaxoSmithKline. Jerome Windsor, PharmD, SVP, Corporate Development  & Product Strategy, GNS Healthcare; Former VP, Strategy & Business Development, Median Technologies. Peter Hornbeck, Ph.D., Director, Cell Signaling Technology; Founder, PhosphoSitePlus.

About Pepper Bio 

Pepper Bio is the world’s first transomics drug discovery company, leveraging its proprietary transomics database and analytics to identify promising first-in-class therapies, rediscover new uses for existing therapeutics, and rescue drugs in development on a path toward failure. Founded in 2020 and based in Boston, Massachusetts, Pepper Bio is led by co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Jon Hu, and co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Samantha Dale Strasser, Ph.D.

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