The medication typically used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients, called tacrolimus, has changed little in three decades, according to Gros, CEO and director of Eledon Pharmaceuticals in Irvine, California. But Eledon recently developed a potentially safer immunosuppressant therapy that changes how the immune system communicates. Called tegoprubart, it interrupts the immune system signals that prompt the body to attack a transplanted organ. Gros says it should bring “a 2030 approach to transplant medicine.”
In the early 2000s, many investors considered the kidney transplant field too complex and slow to change, according to Eledon president Steve Perrin. Yet, he adds, “these are the types of problems that people such as David don’t shy away from.”
In early kidney transplant trials, tegoprubart has protected organs with far fewer side effects such as tremors, cardiovascular complications, and diabetes. To date Eledon has treated about 100 kidney transplant patients. It also has supported ground-breaking pig-to-human kidney transplant surgeries and, in islet cell studies, helped patients with severe Type 1 diabetes discontinue insulin entirely. Gros describes those results as a “functional cure,” with some patients achieving insulin independence in less than a month. With about 100,000 people on the U.S. transplant waiting list at any given time, the company envisions tegoprubart going a long way toward solving the organ shortage crisis.
For Gros—who double-majored in geography and Asian studies and later earned an M.D. at Johns Hopkins University and an M.B.A. at Harvard—the path to biotech began at Dartmouth. With fellowships from the Dickey and Rockefeller centers, he spent summers in Saint Lucia, building the island’s first pre-hospital emergency care system. He calls it his first experience in “medical entrepreneurism,” the blend of clinical care and management that has shaped his career.
