We are proud to announce that Pi Campus closed a follow-on in Allelica, a startup founded by three researchers from Oxford and Rome ‘La Sapienza’ universities. Allelica is building the foundations of preventive medicine by incorporating genetics in disease risk assessments. The new techniques developed by its team allow the translation of genomic data into practical tools to identify individuals with high genetic susceptibility towards life-threatening diseases, such as heart attack, breast cancer, and prostate cancer.
Allelica’s software is based on the Polygenic Risk Score (PRS), state-of-the-art technology in the genetics field not yet taught in universities and thus not routinely used in clinical practices. A confirmation of the excellence of the research carried out by Allelica comes from the recent publication of its paper on genetics implications in heart attack prevention inside the March 2021st issue of Circulation, the world-leading scientific journal on cardiovascular research. Allelica researchers showed that the risk of heart attack conferred by the blood cholesterol depends on our genes, therefore a genetic test should be integrated into the risk assessment. If our genetics are not considered as part of the blood cholesterol analysis, around 20% of the population will receive a wrong and potentially harmful treatment.
“There is still an incredible amount of value to be extracted from DNA and Allelica is creating the technologies to do so,” says Marco Trombetti, Pi Campus CEO. We took part in a round of $ 1.75 Million led by Valor Ventures and Sternberg Health and participated by a few strategic business angels. Allelica will use the investment to secure PRS implementation by major healthcare providers in the US and commercialize in Italy a suite of cardiovascular disease prevention tools developed in partnership with the Italian affiliate of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt Germany, a leading science and technology company with a global presence, operating across healthcare, life science, and electronics.
“If we look at the number of papers published in the genomic field, the exponential growth of interest in the Polygenic Risk Score is evident – says Allelica’s CEO Giordano Bottà – I think we can compare the upcoming revolution of PRS for heart attack prevention with that of the blood cholesterol, but the PRS can provide value for more than one disease. Clinical genetics is changing, it is clear now that the genetic component of a disease is caused by both monogenic and polygenic variants. Unfortunately, the polygenic component of the disease has been neglected so far. That’s why we want to drive PRS from research to clinical application without any further delay, so we can help reduce the burden of devastating life-threatening diseases such as heart attack and breast cancer.”
