Adoram Therapeutics: The Venture Leaders Biotech creating new treatments for patients with solid tumors or immune-based diseases

26.04.2024 10:00, Rita Longobardi

Meet David Pejoski, Co-CEO of Adoram Therapeutics. The Biotech startup is committed to developing best-in-class immunotherapies that are more potent and safer thanks to an allosteric mode of action.

Name: David Pejoski
Location: Geneva
Nationality: Australian
Education: PhD (synthetic vaccines & immunomodulators) and ongoing MBA
Job title: Co-CEO & COO
Number of employees: 3
Money raised: CHF 2.1 M
First touchpoint with Venturelab: Innosuisse Business Creation, Biotech course in 2020

Can you tell us who your product or solution helps and how?
Extracellular adenosine and its receptors play crucial roles in inflammation, cancer, and metabolic disorders. Adoram Therapeutics aims to target adenosine receptors with small molecules, acting as either negative or positive allosteric modulators (NAMs or PAMs). This approach offers enhanced efficacy and safety compared to traditional drugs, promising better outcomes for patients.

What market are you addressing, and what is the potential of your startup in that market?
Current treatments for inflammation, cancer, and metabolic disorders often fall short. Our primary asset, an A2AR NAM, targets solid tumors with low response rates to existing immunotherapies. These include lung and digestive tract cancers, representing lucrative markets with high growth rates. Our secondary asset, an A2AR PAM (positive allosteric modulator), reduces immune responses and is being explored for various inflammatory indications.

How did you come up with the idea for your startup?
At the University of Geneva, interdisciplinary collaborations led to an idea during my senior postdoc. Combining expertise from the School of Pharmacy and Pathology and Immunology Department, we focused on medicinal chemistry, small molecule drug discovery, and immunology. With Innosuisse's support, our results in cancer immunotherapy spurred the creation of a drug development company. Serendipitous discoveries expanded our model to a multi-asset company with candidates for various diseases.

How do you think the Venture Leaders roadshow will help you achieve your vision?
The Venture Leaders roadshow offers a prime chance to grow our investor network crucial for company expansion and clinical research. It connects us with venture capital firms for financing, key opinion leaders in our fields, and fellow entrepreneurs in Switzerland and the US, facilitating knowledge exchange and resource sharing across borders.


What are your team’s key achievements to date?
In the last 3 years, we've rapidly advanced two drug discovery programs. Our lead asset, an A2AR NAM immunotherapy for solid tumors, was patented after a successful chemistry campaign. These molecules show strong efficacy in human cell-based assays and mouse tumor models. Our A2AR PAM anti-inflammatory project is nearing pre-clinical proof-of-concept and patenting. Since incorporating in June 2022, we've onboarded key advisors for drug development plans.

Is there a key principle or value that guides you as you build your company?
Relating to the products; a key principle is generating value for end customers via translational research excellence that shows the likelihood of success in human clinical trials. For the company in general; a key principle is striving for business integrity by creating interactions that feature transparency, fidelity, and mutual benefit with internal and external stakeholders.

What is the most important lesson you have learned as a founder?
Perseverance and focus are needed during both technical and business challenges. As drug development is a long-term endeavor, it is essential to continuously redirect attention to milestones. For example, fundraising is time-intensive and calls for tenacity. On the technical side of drug discovery, perseverance can be coupled with reflection and reassessment to enable pivoting when appropriate.

Tell us something people don't know about you.
Drug development has been my life goal since the age of 17 - when I decided to dedicate my career to developing new medicines, especially vaccines and immune-focused therapies that have tangible benefits for patients. The immune system still fascinates me after 20 years and I believe the increased body of public knowledge will surely enable the development of safer and more effective medicines.

Any podcasts or books you want to share with us?
For those who are short on time, I would recommend non-fiction book summary apps like Blinkist or similar. Contrasting many books served as an introduction to entrepreneurship, management techniques, and investment. Even though it is not a substitute for reading something from cover to cover, the app turned out to be a great way to hear about prevailing ideologies as well as fresh insights.