ARPA-H award supports the development of an oral prodrug using Seaport’s proprietary Glyph™ platform to address dysfunctional gut lymphatics and local inflammation linked to metabolic disease and pancreatic cancer
BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Seaport Therapeutics (“Seaport” or the “Company”), a clinical-stage therapeutics company advancing novel neuropsychiatric medicines with a proven strategy and team, today announced the award of an up to $15 million award to advance Seaport’s GlyphCele™ or Cele-Pro™, from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) in collaboration with the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS). Using Seaport’s proprietary Glyph™ platform, GlyphCele is specifically engineered to target and normalize dysfunction in the gut lymphatic system, which plays a central role in metabolic disease and pancreatic cancer. Glyph has the ability to render a wide range of molecules, including immunomodulators, to be more amenable to lymphatic transport and thus providing direct access to the immune system.
In metabolic disease, lymphatic vessels that normally move dietary fats and immune signals out of the gut can lose their structure and begin leaking fluid into nearby abdominal fat, fueling inflammation, weight gain, and insulin resistance. Using Glyph, GlyphCele is designed to address this issue at its source by delivering therapy directly into the gut lymphatics. If successful, it could be the first oral therapeutic restoring normal vessel function, reducing lymphatic leakage, and breaking the cycle that drives metabolic dysfunction. Preclinical studies published in Nature Metabolism provided proof-of-concept that lymphatic targeted COX2 inhibition can correct this lymphatic damage, improve metabolic markers, and reverse insulin resistance.
In pancreatic cancer, tumor-associated lymphatics can allow inflammatory and tumor-promoting signals to spread into surrounding tissues. By delivering GlyphCele directly into the lymphatic network that connects the gut and pancreas, the Glyph platform is intended to strengthen local anti-tumor activity and suppress metastasis. Across both conditions, GlyphCele is designed to treat the underlying disease biology rather than managing downstream symptoms.
“The work behind GlyphCele represents an opportunity to address fundamental aspects of disease biology that current treatments overlook, and we are delighted to work with ARPA-H and the Monash team to advance a program that could ultimately transform outcomes for patients across multiple complex diseases,” said Daniel Bonner, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Senior Vice President, Platform, at Seaport Therapeutics. “While our internal focus remains on developing neuropsychiatric medicines, we believe the Glyph platform has broad applicability across diseases, and we’re pleased to advance its potential beyond CNS through non-dilutive funding.”
The award supports the advancement of GlyphCele, an investigational Glyphed oral prodrug of the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib, which is designed to target the lymphatic system, reduce systemic exposure and enhance safety, while exerting the unique pharmacology required to restore normal lymphatic function. The success of this program could establish a disease-modifying approach in both metabolic disease and pancreatic cancer. It may also help lay the foundation for future lymphatic-targeted therapies and support the broader applicability of the Glyph platform across high-impact diseases. There are currently no approved lymphatic-targeted oral medicines and no non-surgical method to normalize gastrointestinal lymphatic dysfunction. This underscores the potential of this program to advance a completely new mechanism of action for diseases driven by lymphatic dysfunction.
“This program builds upon decades of scientific progress in lymphatic physiology and transport of therapeutics, but brings something truly new: a practical, patient-friendly strategy to directly correct gut lymphatic dysfunction rather than work around it,” said Professor Christopher Porter, Ph.D., Director of the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS). “This collaboration with Seaport brings together a group that has worked closely since the earliest days of the Glyph platform, strengthening the continuity and depth of knowledge as we pursue a therapeutic approach that could meaningfully change how lymphatic-driven diseases are treated.”
This effort is part of ARPA-H’s Groundbreaking Lymphatic Interventions and Drug Exploration (GLIDE) program. GLIDE aims to develop physical, pharmacologic, gene, and cell-based therapeutic interventions to treat primary and rare lymphatic disease and chronic conditions complicated by lymphatic dysfunction. GLIDE is led by ARPA-H Program Manager, Kimberley Steele, M.D., Ph.D.
About the Glyph™ Platform
Glyph is Seaport’s proprietary technology platform which uses the lymphatic system to enable and enhance the oral administration of drugs. With the Glyph platform, drugs are absorbed like dietary fats through the intestinal lymphatic system and transported into circulation. The Glyph platform has the potential to be widely applied to many therapeutic molecules that have high first-pass metabolism otherwise leading to low bioavailability and/or side effects, including liver enzyme elevations or hepatotoxicity. For each program, Seaport leverages its Glyph platform to create unique sets of prodrugs with differentiated profiles, including lymphatic transport and conversion characteristics, as potential candidates to advance into preclinical and clinical proof-of-concept studies. Seaport exclusively licensed this technology from Monash University based on the pioneering research of the Porter Research Group. Advanced initially at PureTech Health and now at Seaport, Glyph has been applied to create therapeutic candidates for the Company’s pipeline resulting in new intellectual property, including composition of matter. The group and its collaborators have published research in Nature Metabolism, Frontiers in Pharmacology, Journal of Controlled Release and Molecular Pharmaceutics supporting the Glyph platform’s capabilities. See Glyph in action here.
About Seaport Therapeutics
Seaport Therapeutics is a clinical-stage therapeutics company advancing the development of novel neuropsychiatric medicines in areas of high unmet patient needs. The Company has a proven strategy of advancing clinically validated mechanisms previously held back by limitations that are overcome with its proprietary Glyph technology platform. All the therapeutic candidates in its pipeline of first and best-in-class medicines are based on the Glyph platform, which is uniquely designed to enable oral bioavailability, bypass first-pass metabolism and reduce liver enzyme elevations or hepatotoxicity and other side effects. Seaport is led by an experienced team that invented and advanced important neuropsychiatric medicines and is guided by an extensive network of renowned scientists, clinicians, and key opinion leaders. For more information, please visit www.seaporttx.com.
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