Catalyst to growth launched by Broken String Biosciences

The company – based at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridge and Boston US – says the development allows for the detection of on and off-target edits at high resolution, in days, in their own labs.

The program lets select companies use Broken String’s INDUCE-seq® platform as a first-of-its-kind offering for rapidly detecting on-target and off-target effects that can occur during gene editing.

This new on-demand offering enables gene editing therapy developers to assess on- and off-target effects in days, as opposed to months.

The offering can be integrated into early therapeutics development at target validation, reducing risk and removing the need for costly internal workflows that slow development progress. It is cell and nuclease agnostic, enabling direct measurement in clinically relevant samples, addressing regulatory scrutiny around unintended edits.

Felix Dobbs, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Broken String said: “The gene editing industry has reached an inflection point, where the momentum required to reach its potential can only be sustained by expanding patient access — which requires standardisation, faster drug development, and robust safety characterisation.

“Our Catalyst program will enable faster and broader industry-wide adoption of INDUCE-seq® and position this as an essential technology for the next wave of gene-editing based therapeutics.”

For years, companies have been using INDUCE-seq® via Broken String’s labs to ensure safety before entering clinical trials. INDUCE-seq® solves a fundamental safety challenge that dates back to the origins of gene editing: how to assess on- and off-target effects as they happen.

By making the same technology available for developers in their own labs, they retain full control over their experiments while incorporating safety throughout the entire development process.

The industry lacks a gold standard for detecting on- and off-target edits. Current approaches can have PCR-induced bias, and miss low-frequency unintended edits that are potentially dangerous and can have disastrous consequences for clinical programs.

INDUCE-seq® improves on existing technologies by delivering unbiased genome-wide insights, accurately detecting double-strand DNA breaks from CRISPR and other gene editing technologies.

Broken String’s on-premise Catalyst EAP accelerates discovery programs with iterative use to screen guide RNAs based on efficacy, as measured through on-target editing efficiency, as well as also providing quick indications for off-target safety.

• Enrolment in the Catalyst EAP is limited to a select group of participants. Interested companies can visit https://www.brokenstringbio.com/resources/catalyst-program/ to learn more and apply.