TLDR: This proposal seeks community feedback on which of VitaDAO’s IP-NFTs should be tokenized next as an IPT.
Team: Tim Peterson, Alex Dobrin. Tim is part of the Dealflow group and he has specialized knowledge on the science of each project. Alex is Steward of the Awareness group and he has specialized knowledge on the crypto community. One point in having a diverse team is to explore to what extent should the biotech or crypto lead the decision-making.
Background: The IPT’ing of the Korolchuk project into VITA-FAST has been a success. VitaDAO has funded several additional projects as IP-NFTs where VitaDAO owns 100% of the project. An IP-NFT is a single token representing a project. IPTs are tokens that get created from an IP-NFT. Many of VitaDAO’s IP-NFTs have now completed significant work on what was funded so it is natural to consider opening up governance on these projects to more people. The advantage of opening up the governance is not only to further fund these projects but also to provide a signal of market demand to additional interested parties.
Below are the 5 projects where we have IP-NFTs. There are various pros and cons to considering tokenizing each one as an IPT. To minimize bias, a maximum of 3 pros and 3 cons will be listed for each.
Conflict of interest: Tim Peterson has a conflict of interest in being the Morten Scheibye Knudsen project lead. According to VitaDAO governance precedence, he would benefit financially from an IPT being made out of this project.
Vera Gorbunova (extracellular matrix regulation, a.k.a. Matrix Bio)
Pros
- Matrix has an experienced biotech team member already onboard (Anthony Schwartz). This contrasts with several of the other projects: namely, Fang, An, and Sharma.
- The extracellular matrix is an underexplored therapeutic target, which means there could be less competition.
- The project lead, Vera Gorbunova, has published high impact journals, namely in Nature, on the subject matter of this project which raises its public profile.
Cons
- The project is at an earlier stage than all other projects under consideration with the exception of Artan. A pilot screen has been recently performed, but still will take a few months before some candidate compounds are identified.
- An underexplored therapeutic target area can be seen as a risk to traditional biotech investors that VitaDAO might want to eventually court.
- That this project exists as a company potentially causes added legal and economic complexity in launching an IPT.
Morten Scheibye Knudsen (lifespan extending drugs in the Denmark population, a.k.a. The Longevity Molecule)
Pros:
- A lead asset class of compounds has been identified.
- The lead drug class has some of the highest level of evidence of longevity benefits in humans of any known drug including rapamycin.
- Given that the compounds are already clinically used, this IP-NFT offers the fastest path to humans amongst the other projects under consideration here. Project lead, Morten Scheibye Knudsen, is a clinical trialist MD who has expressed interest in leading the clinical efforts.
Cons:
- Potentially what VitaDAO focuses on with this project will be a generic drug. VitaDAO currently lacks in-house expertise in the generics business. That being said, there are well known paths towards revenue and IP in the generics business, with ROI often exceeding those of pharma. All other projects under consideration are focused on novel composition of matter, which is the more traditional biotech path. In summary, the business opportunity is less known to VitaDAO, albeit it would likely be a shorter path to humans than the other IP-NFTs (potentially several years shorter).
Evandro Fang (mitophagy)
Pros
- Mitophagy is a relatively underexplored area of drug development.
- Some possible candidate lead molecules have been established.
Cons
- VitaDAO’s first IPT, VITA-FAST, also focuses on autophagy and involves small molecule screening. Therefore, it could be argued VitaDAO should choose a different type of project as its second IPT.
- The molecular mechanisms of mitophagy are not well understood and the drug target(s) for the various candidate molecules under consideration have not been identified.
Michael Torres (tRNA to regulate protein expression, a.k.a. Artan Bio)
Pros
- Regulating protein expression using tRNAs is a therapeutic approach on the rise.
- Artan has an experienced biotech team already onboard (Michael Torres and Anthony Schwartz). This is unlike several of the other projects: Fang, An, and Sharma.
Cons
- This is the earliest stage of all the projects under consideration. Experiments are underway but no preliminary results exist yet.
- That this project exists as a company potentially causes added legal and economic complexity in launching an IPT.
Amit Sharma (CAR-NK for senolytics, a.k.a. ApoptoSENS)
Pros
- CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) technology is a therapeutic approach on the rise. A Nobel Prize was awarded for it.
- There are comparable projects with solid in vivo data that suggest the current approach could work.
- Initial data with the chosen antigens showing 3-4X selective effects, suggests the current path could work.
Cons
- The antigens being currently pursued are broadly expressed, raising questions of how selective the chosen CAR strategy could be. The therapeutic window between efficacy and toxicity is a major concern if the approach isn’t selective enough.
Jonathan An (gerotherapies for oral and systemic health)
Pros
- Oral health is an underappreciated area of longevity. It is increasingly appreciated that good oral health can have systemic benefits.
- The data generated with VitaDAO’s funding was positive. The project achieved what it set out to achieve.
Cons
- The drug assets under consideration would need to be licensed from other companies with in some cases prohibitively high upfront costs.
- The project lead, Jonathan An, is pursuing a related clinical trial with rapamycin that VitaDAO didn’t fund. Thus, VitaDAO might not have exposure to some potentially valuable IP from this project lead.
Proposal: Please vote on IPTing as many projects as you see fit. Those with 10 or more votes will be considered for on-chain voting.
- Gorbunova
- Scheibye-Knudsen
- Torres
- Fang
- An
- Sharma