Increasing hope in rare disease — how Incite partnered with Vibe Bio to accelerate the search & evaluation of sarcoma drugs

Patient need meets scientific strategy in rare disease

Incite, founded by Matt Rogers (Founder of Nest Labs and co-founder & CEO of Mill), is a mission-driven family office blending philanthropy with strategic investing. While historically focused on areas such as climate, education, and women’s rights, Incite expanded its focus in recent years after a family member was diagnosed with liposarcoma, a rare cancer that forms in the body’s connective tissue.

As JC Neel, a cell and molecular biologist advising the foundation, explained: “As in all rare diseases, sarcoma research is typically undercapitalized, so the field needs more funding and more participants. I was brought in to help identify where the need was greatest, to fund and push research across both academia and the private sector, and eventually, ideally, all the way to a therapeutic.”

For liposarcoma patients, the challenges to finding treatments are severe. Because the disease often develops in soft tissue between organs, symptoms may go undetected for years. Many patients are misdiagnosed repeatedly and only receive a correct diagnosis when the tumors have grown large enough to cause pressure on nearby organs. At that point, treatment options are limited and outcomes are more unpredictable.

Incite’s mission here was clear: to identify viable drugs for a devastating rare disease.

The challenge: Finding hidden gems 

To advance its liposarcoma drug programs, Incite assembled a set of biotech partners to identify compounds that might treat liposarcoma. With a tight two- to three-month window, Incite needed to quickly diligence all assets identified with speed and objectivity. Vibe Bio was able to ensure scientific rigor and depth of evaluation without delay. 

Importantly, Incite faced a tight timeframe to begin in vitro and in vivo testing. That testing depended on finalizing a prioritized, high-confidence shortlist of compounds. Whereas the identification of the list of candidate drugs and their biological rationale was performed by one of the partner biotechs, Kantify, it was also important to assess practical feasibility, including manufacturing, patent status, and acceptable delivery methods. In short, Incite needed to find hidden gems from a large set of potential assets and eliminate less promising candidates quickly.

The solution: AI-enabled diligence and prioritization of assets with Vibe Bio

The Vibe Bio team collaborated with Incite to develop a framework for evaluating and prioritizing their assets. Leveraging its AI-powered analysis platform, VibeOne, Vibe Bio quickly and systematically triaged every asset within a customized framework co-developed with Incite, including:

• Manufacturability
• Patent status and intellectual property (IP) risk
• Remaining patent term
• Patient experience (e.g. route of administration, etc.)
• Safety profile
• Commercial viability

Vibe Bio’s evidence-based prioritization enabled Incite to swap out approximately 10-20 percent of compounds that showed low potential and replace them with other candidates without losing time for human calibration. Vibe Bio went over all compounds with the same criteria to ensure a defensible and systematic selection process that helped generate a comprehensive landscape.

The efficiency was just as valuable as the objectivity. Thanks to Vibe Bio, the prioritization was completed in a few weeks, far faster than traditional, manual, human-driven processes.

The value of Vibe Bio is not just the unbiased ranking, but also the time we saved. Humans might have taken six months or more, and still missed opportunities because of unconscious bias.

JC Neel, Chief Scientific Officer for Incite

Vibe Bio analysis enabled:

The results: A faster, more credible path for sarcoma treatment

The prioritized compound list Vibe Bio provided to Incite allowed the Incite collaborator to begin testing with Institut Bergonie without delay, starting in vitro screens and setting up follow-on human organoid testing in the United States with Rosebud Bio.

By tackling questions of manufacturability, IP, and administration route up front, Vibe Bio helped ensure that resources would be invested in candidate compounds with a realistic chance of becoming viable treatments for liposarcoma.

“In rare diseases, there are so many unknowns that you can go down rabbit holes,” JC noted. Vibe Bio helped keep a consistent focus on key metrics the team was tracking and helped avoid delays in project scheduling.

Beyond enabling data-driven decision-making, Vibe Bio’s approach built trust with Incite due to its responsiveness and depth of analysis. With its platform now in place, Vibe Bio can also quickly re-run its analysis once initial screens come back, helping Incite prioritize the most high-potential options as it moves to the next phase.

Looking ahead: Transforming rare disease development together

Incite is now advancing to the next phase of drug evaluation, with promising leads ready for deeper diligence. As these compounds move forward, JC and the team at Incite believe the learnings will set a powerful example for how rare disease drug development can work smarter, faster, and with less bias.

It’s hard enough to work on rare diseases. The more you can remove human bias, bring in third-party validation, and move quickly, the better.

JC Neel, CSO for Incite

Vibe Bio’s AI-powered platform, VibeOne, augmented with human quality assurance and configuration, provided unbiased ranking and deep compound analysis, increasing financial efficiency and delivering hope for those suffering from liposarcoma. By shortening diligence timelines, reducing bias, and increasing confidence that the best candidate compounds move forward, Vibe Bio empowered its partners to de-risk decisions and push the most promising drug candidates forward faster.

Photo by Luis Andrés Villalón Vega on Unsplash