How Mursla Bio is changing the science of liquid biopsies

Mursla Bio, which recently announced the results of its 400-patient clinical trial, is not just evolving the science of liquid biopsies – the fast-track biotech is also creating a Cambridge-made template for how transatlantic business is conducted.

Founded in 2017, the pioneering biotech company is developing the power of its Dynamic Biopsy platform to improve cancer outcomes for high-risk patients – with an initial focus on liver cancer.

Dynamic Biopsy non-invasively analyses dynamic biological processes within a specific organ or tissue to assess its health condition. The approach combines the accuracy and disease sub-typing capabilities of tissue biopsies with the ease of liquid biopsy sample collection.

The technology analyses organ-specific extracellular vesicles (EVs) in blood which reflects the biological status of the cell they come from, making them ideal biomarkers for disease detection. Mursla Bio’s clinical study analysed changes in liver-specific EVs in the blood of cirrhotic patients at high risk of liver cancer, compared to patients already diagnosed with liver cancer. This allowed the identification of a set of unique biomarkers indicating that some liver cells had begun to transition towards cancer.

This breakthrough enables faster and more accurate cancer diagnoses, more effective treatments and ultimately an increased chance of patient survival.

So how did Mursla Bio’s name come about? Inspired by his time working as an M&A investment banker at JP Morgan’s Tokyo office, Pierre Arsène, the company’s founder and CEO, explains that the name is based on the Japanese pronunciation of ‘Moore’s Law’, which originally predicted that computing power doubles every two years, and has now been co-opted to progress in biotechnology.

“‘Moore’s Law’ – ‘more-slow’ – can’t be pronounced in Japanese,” he notes. “It becomes ‘More-so-la’, so that’s where the name came from.” Just add ‘Bio’!

It was after returning from Japan that Pierre first became exposed to the incredible progress – and potential – of liquid biopsy.

“It was fantastic,” he says of his cross-border experience in healthcare investment banking, adding: “I was exposed to the frontier of new life sciences applications, such as liquid technologies. [Liquid technologies in life sciences include liquid handling and liquid-liquid extraction, and are used in drug discovery, genomics and clinical diagnostics] combined with Next Generation Sequencing and growing computing capabilities. Now, it’s called AI drug or biomarker discovery, but not then.”

When a second close relative began experiencing serious health issues, Pierre – he was raised in France of French, German and Czech origins, and was granted UK citizenship three years ago – decided he wanted to move “from money to meaning”.

“So as a stepping stone I decided to focus on biophysics,” he says. “I got introduced to the Cavendish Lab through a contact, and so I relocated to Cambridge to develop liquid biopsy technologies.”

Fast forward to last year and, in June, Mursla Bio opened its first office in the US, in Cambridge, MA. Then came the creation of EvoLiver, its first test.

“EvoLiver is for liver cancer surveillance,” says Pierre. “That was announced in the middle of November. And it works, so we have a product ready to market. EVs are messengers, like a letter in the post with a ‘return to sender’ address, and we are the first in the world to know which cells sent that letter.”

EvoLiver’s launch starts with the US, where Mursla Bio plans to secure CLIA accreditation for laboratory-developed tests and then FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval. So no UK/EU approval as yet?

“We have to start in the US,” says Pierre. “You have to raise a lot of money to get the return on investment from costly technological and clinical developments and the only place you can get that return is in the US. The pricing you get is higher – for exactly the same service – in the US, and it’s faster to sell it there, while in the UK the commercial path is more complicated.”

How is it more complicated?

“All the UK stakeholders have to reach agreement – the clinicians, regulators, guidelines, NHS etc. And the NHS has so many trusts and you have to negotiate each one by one and it can take years and by that time you are out of business or possibly overtaken by more funded companies in America or China. So there’s no choice – the plan is to reach a sufficient scale and clinical evidence in the US then reinvest what we learn and earn back into the UK.”

The focus on a US launch has huge implications for Mursla Bio’s development – and for the use of the funds from the upcoming Series A round, with a “double-digit million” target which has already had substantial commitments.

“The Series A that started in February will close this summer,” Pierre notes. “We’re on track. We’ll use the proceeds to help us grow further in the US and ultimately launch our product in the UK and globally.

“With regards to EV science we are a leading company in the world here for diagnostics. My job is to create value with the science.”

And next?

“We can’t do all diseases. You start with the most painful – cancer and dementia – and the idea is to check the molecular status of key organs directly through EVs in the blood, to test routinely for all these diseases: that’s my vision.

“Right now, even if doctors know you’re going to get Alzheimer’s, there’s not much they can do – there’s not much in the way of treatments. So we need treatments. That’s very easy with liver cancer – an ablation, resection or organ transplant can happen, but if it’s too late you won’t be able to get treated successfully.

“So the treatment option is very clear for liver cancer and this type of test can change the survival rate completely. On top of that, the liver is one of the biggest organs and is very well vascularised, so scientifically speaking that is less complicated to biopsy its EVs in blood. The more complicated stuff comes later, for instance the lung, which is less vascularised.

“We’re trying to become the best in the world for this class of messengers and so far we can point to some evidence showing that we are.”