Greg Verdine, renowned for his work in pancreatic cancer research, attributes his innovative thinking to a personal family tragedy. Verdine, a chemical biologist, was driving to his Cambridge office while listening to a podcast featuring former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, who has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Sasse shared how an experimental drug reduced his tumors by 76 percent, allowing him to surpass survival expectations. Verdine realized, “I made that possible,” referring to the drug daraxonrasib.<\/p>\n
Daraxonrasib’s Phase 3 clinical trial results have nearly doubled the survival time for pancreatic cancer patients from 6.7 to 13.2 months. “It’s a chink in the armor of a very difficult cancer,” Verdine stated, expressing hope for further extending survival times. The drug’s success stems from a molecular glue that enables two proteins to bond, challenging the belief that the KRAS protein was undruggable.<\/p>\n
Verdine has made a career out of tackling “undruggable” targets, creating new types of medications both in his Harvard lab and through companies he has founded. One such company, Parabilis, is advancing a drug called zolucatetide, which is also showing promise in clinical trials. Curtis Keith from Harvard’s Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator remarked on Verdine’s ability to create fundamentally new drug modalities.<\/p>\n
Verdine’s innovative streak was nurtured by early experiences following his father’s accident, which left him paralyzed. Growing up in New Jersey, Verdine helped retrofit vehicles and developed improvisational skills. His academic journey led him from an English major to chemistry, eventually earning a professorship at Harvard in 1988.<\/p>\n
Verdine focused on solving the issue of “undruggable” proteins, which were hard to target due to their location inside cells and lack of binding sites. He aimed to create protein therapeutics using short amino acid chains, stabilized by a chemical “staple” to penetrate cell membranes and bind to proteins. Despite the risks, Verdine’s concept, known as stapled peptides or helicons, proved successful.<\/p>\n
With support from Harvard’s Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator, Verdine received $450,000 in grants starting in 2011. This funding helped develop his technology, leading to the founding of Fog Pharmaceuticals, now Parabilis. The company’s leading drug candidate, zolucatetide, earned fast-track FDA designation for treating desmoid tumors, showing tumor reduction in all patients during trials.<\/p>\n
On June 10, Parabilis went public, raising $770.5 million to further develop zolucatetide and other therapies. Curtis Keith described the drug as potentially one of Harvard’s most significant therapeutics. Verdine’s work with daraxonrasib and zolucatetide reinforces his belief in the power of innovative, unconventional ideas. “We should be funding crazy stuff, because the crazy stuff is what changes the world,” he emphasized.<\/p>\n