Decibel Therapeutics

You need to ask them one by one. No one will agree to do it publicly.
Even in Russia no clinic will agree for anything that's not regulated, but if you ask nicely you can do pretty much anything as long as you sign the waiver.

I don't think there's a secret ingredient and these drugs are at least 1-2 years away from market. You have more chances on recovery if you do it now vs 2 years later.

 

Glad we're at the bottom of this list. Why can't multiple companies be working on each of these things instead of one company slowly going one at a time? If they have a clue how to treat this then why would there be any delay whatsoever?

 

https://www.decibeltx.com/pipeline/

 

Is it just me or did Decibel Therapeutics go backwards? This company is a waste. They have incorrect priorities. At this point I only hope they don't clog up the research feed touting how much money they've received from investors.

 

I'm confused as well. I had high hopes for these guys. It doesn't seem like they have anything even close to phase 1 for hearing loss.

 

They are playing it safe with anti-ototoxic drugs before they move on to the regenerative fantasy stuff. If they stick to simpler task like rushing anti-ototoxic agents for cancer patients, they'll get success which means more funding for research. They need to learn more about hidden hearing loss, noxacusis and the inner ear before they put out a therapeutics for it.

We aren't first on their list because we are more difficult to treat and they don't want to blow it.

 

Definitely playing it loose.

 

I just noticed from this latest graph that their auditory neuropathy/tinnitus drug in pre-clinical says it's a biologic. This seems like a really different approach and i am very curious about it.

 

It's probably BDNF.

 

I was just assuming it would be something so far untried since Otonomy has BDNF covered. Maybe like NT-3?

There must be something (not BDNF) that they found that shows (or also shows) promise in addressing synaptopathy and tinnitus.

 

Update from Decibel Therapeutics.

This was literally just posted on their Twitter page. They will be presenting very soon at the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology:

https://www.decibeltx.com/decibel-t...or-research-in-otolaryngology-aro-conference/

And there's a program here:
https://asro.memberclicks.net/assets/2020_MWM/ARO 2020 Abstracts Doc_FINAL.pdf

 

Decibel Therapeutics Announces Leadership Transition

Biotech veteran Laurence Reid to lead company as CEO Steven Holtzman retires

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...-Therapeutics-Announces-Leadership-Transition

“Decibel’s deep understanding of the biology of the inner ear gives us a unique opportunity to develop life-changing therapeutics for these disorders. I believe that Decibel has built a superb research and drug discovery team, and I am excited to help that team exploit these opportunities in transformative ways.”

 

https://www.decibeltx.com/decibel-t...s-on-regenerative-medicine-for-the-inner-ear/

From today: "Decibel Therapeutics Announces Strategic Research Focus on Regenerative Medicine for the Inner Ear"

- "Company signs option agreement with The Rockefeller University to access intellectual property covering compounds targeting key regeneration pathway."

 

I found this researcher on Rockefeller's site:

https://www.rockefeller.edu/our-scientists/heads-of-laboratories/1186-a-james-hudspeth

"The team is also studying how individual nerve fibers distinguish between hair cells of the two functional polarities, selectively innervating only one of the two sets."

He has a wiki too but it reads a bit like he wrote it himself.

 

I posted something on Hudspeth after he was awarded the Kavli Prize for neuroscience. I remember that he mentioned in an interview at the time that they were evaluating compounds for hair cell regeneration. This is encouraging news I think.

Ok, I found that article I posted the link to.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/theres-an-inverse-piano-in-your-head/

 

This quote stood out:

"We’ve screened 80,000 drugs so far and we have two compounds in particular that look promising. We’re now trying to learn in more detail how they operate, and whether they or related compounds could be used for regeneration in humans."

It's nice to see that researchers are really pouring their heart and soul into this. It's very clear.

 

Yes. Amazing. The work involved. It would be nice actually if he or his lab were involved in developing a working treatment after 50 years of pure research in hearing.

 

I don't know what you think about it, but to me, comparing these two pipeline updates, I think there a real step backyard: it means that DB-XX5 disappeared (it turned out to be a bad compound so they are looking for a new drug candidate) and the indication "tinnitus" disappeared.

Edit: sorry for the size of the screenshot, maybe someone else can do it better.

 

It looks like their cochlear regeneration focus is now on something called a "LATS inhibitor" which appears to be a novel approach. Not sure what it repairs exactly, they really aren't yet saying.

From their website:

"Decibel today announced an exclusive worldwide option agreement with The Rockefeller University, which has discovered a novel series of small-molecule LATS inhibitors. LATS kinases are a core component of the Hippo signaling pathway, which plays a key role in regulating both tissue regeneration and the proliferation of cells in the inner ear that are crucial to hearing and balance. The agreement gives Decibel an exclusive option to license this series of compounds across all therapeutic areas."

 

All I could find so far on LATS or the Hippo pathway for regeneration is this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27535619/

It look like it is being studied to regenerate the liver.

One thing I have also read so far is that these inhibitors also expand progenitor cells and activate native stem cell growth. So perhaps it would be especially useful in situations where a lot of support cells were lost (severe deafness or ototoxicity from Cisplatin and some antibiotics). Or if Audion depletes too many support cells?

As @Frédéric pointed out, Decibel appear to have shifted from their "neuropathy/tinnitus" compound and have added this one instead.

 

An overview of recent developments at Decibel:
https://www.biocentury.com/bc-extra...overy-focus-inner-ear-regeneration-taps-reid-

They're laying off staff, so overall things maybe aren't that rosy.

A paper referenced in the above may be this one:

https://elifesciences.org/articles/25681

If you Google elife and hippo, you'll find a few papers that may be related. Making sense of them is well beyond me.

Edit: That paper may not be the one referenced. Awaiting @FGG's analysis.

 

The paper reference above is for vestibular regrowth. They have a separate LATS hearing one I believe but less far along in pre-clinical.

Doubled checked. That paper refers to their vestibular regeneration drug.

 

This pipeline is an older version, you can see here the one sent by @Frédéric is the newer one:

https://www.decibeltx.com/pipeline/

 

So Frederic is right then? i.e. they are laying off staff, winding down the tinnitus side of their drug discovery?
Well that's just one firm.

 

This company's management were dogshit con-artists from the start. F them and their former sleaze-bag CEO for wasting all that investor money.

 

I hate to hear that about the CEO. So there is no hope for tinnitus.

 

I’m out of the loop, what did he do?

 

Something new published today from a team that includes Decibel Therapeutics.

Study charts developmental map of inner ear sound sensor in mice

Data offers valuable resource for developing stem cell-based therapies for hearing loss

May 28, 2020

A team of researchers has generated a developmental map of a key sound-sensing structure in the mouse inner ear. Scientists at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their collaborators analyzed data from 30,000 cells from mouse cochlea, the snail-shaped structure of the inner ear. The results provide insights into the genetic programs that drive the formation of cells important for detecting sounds.

The research team includes investigators at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore; Decibel Therapeutics, Boston; and King’s College London.

https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/news/2020/study-charts-developmental-map-of-inner-ear-sound-sensor-in-mice

 

Yes, they seem to be far away from any cure:

https://www.decibeltx.com/pipeline/

 

Yeah, Frequency Therapeutics is way ahead of everyone else.