Obesity is one of the biggest global health crises of the 21st century. It is a disease defined by metabolic imbalance. This imbalance results from our combined excess food consumption and inability to burn off the calories. However, the current obesity market is largely dominated by pharmacotherapies only targeting one side of this equation: food intake. As a result, weight loss from nonsurgical treatment options has been suboptimal and unsustainable. Therefore, in GET-UP BAT, we sought to develop strategies that specifically promote adipose tissue energy expenditure to open up new avenues for obesity treatment.
Through our rationally-designed discovery platform, we identified a novel, undisclosed factor that dramatically increased calorie-burning and lowered body weight in obese mice. These results were confirmed in a blinded study by a third-party contract research organization. During GET-UP BAT, we investigated ways to stabilize this factor and increase its pharmacokinetics and efficacy. We further examined the combinatorial potential of co-administering our candidate with current obesity treatments targeting food intake. Finally, we were successful in the PCT filing of our discovery through the University of Copenhagen. Most importantly, the data and patent application supported by this ERC Proof-of-Concept grant directly enabled my team to form a spinout company from the University of Copenhagen, called Embark Biotech ApS. Embark is now pursuing the commercialization of this factor in partnership with a major international pharmaceutical company.
Thus, GET-UP not only allowed us to uncover an exciting new biological role for adipose tissue but also to develop a strong potential for tangible socioeconomic benefit and biomedically-relevant opportunities for patients suffering from metabolic disease.
