MassDevice is liveblogging the MassMEDIC 11th Annual Medtech Investors Conference. We’re talking to the officers and executives of some of the hottest under-the-radar medical device firms around, finding out how and why their technologies will separate them from the pack.
Immuneering Corp., Boston
Co-founder and CEO Ben Zeskind told MassDevice that his firm uses existing hardware and its proprietary technology to help oncologists predict whether cancer patients will respond to certain treatments.
Officers
Ben Zeskind, Co-founder & CEO
Bob Carpenter, Co-founder & Chairman
Mara Aspinall, Business Advisor
Doug Lauffenburger, Scientific Advisor
Product
Immuneering’s initial products are designed to predict response to interleukin-2 (IL-2), an FDA-approved therapy for metastatic melanoma and kidney cancer. IL-2 is the only therapy known to permanently cure these very aggressive cancers, but only ~7% of patients respond. IL-2 produces toxicity so severe that patients must be hospitalized in intensive care, and costs health plans $60,000+ per patient. Today there is no way to predict response, so patients must decide whether to substantially increase their suffering for a 7% chance of a cure.
Building upon research conducted at MIT by Doug Lauffenburger, Immuneering is developing technology to provide oncologists with additional information about a patient’s likelihood of response. This will enable health plans to realize significant savings by reducing unnecessary treatments, and ultimately help researchers design more effective therapies. Immuneering is validating this technology in collaboration with oncologists at Kaiser Permanente, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and the NIH.
