Mission

Super-efficient drug discovery with Drosophila

Today, we are faced with significant challenges, including an aging population, the rise of lifestyle-related diseases, and escalating healthcare costs. The development of new drugs, traditionally a costly, time-consuming endeavor, has struggled to keep pace due to these pressures. Conventional animal testing, particularly with mice, often hinders efficient drug discovery processes. Additionally, growing ethical concerns regarding mammal testing have impacted the food and cosmetic industries' ability to innovate and develop new products.

In response to these challenges, we have developed a Drosophila-based platform for super-efficient drug discovery and beyond. Drosophila, commonly known as the fruit fly, are cost-effective, easy to breed, and raise no significant ethical issues. Importantly, they share similar genes and chemical response mechanisms with mammals, making them an effective model for testing. Our company focuses on research in alternative testing methods for chemicals including drugs, drug discovery and development, toxicology of consumer products and environmental chemicals, advanced 3D analytical methods, and more. In pharmaceutical research, we aim to treat various diseases such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, rheumatism, and diabetes.

FlyWorks was established leveraging research from Hokkaido University (Sonoshita Lab and Komatsuzaki Lab), the University of Tokyo (Goda Lab), and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Cagan Lab). We have initiated this venture with the backing of several significant Japanese research programs, including the Japan Science and Technology Agency's (JST) START and CREST programs, the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development's (AMED) drug discovery program, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science's (JSPS) core-to-core program.

News
* November 2024: CEO Walker Peterson exhibits at BIO Europe.
* October 2024: CEO Walker Peterson exhibits at SWITCH (Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology) in Singapore.
* September 2024: FlyWorks obtains a grant from Mitsubishi UFJ Technology Development Foundation.
* April 2024: A preprint of our paper entitled "Flow Zoometry of Drosophila" is published on bioRxiv.
* March 2024: FlyWorks America, Inc. is launched in Massachusetts, USA.
* March 2024: FlyWorks obtains a grant from Hokuyo Bank's Startup R&D Grant Program.
* September 2023: FlyWorks, K.K. is launched in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
* March 2022: FlyWorks receives the Grand Prize from Photonics Challenge 2022.
* February 2022: FlyWorks receives the Award of Excellence from NEDO Technology Commercialization Program 2021.
* February 2022: FlyWorks receives the VC Award from NEDO Technology Commercialization Program 2021.
* October 2021: FlyWorks receives the Award of Excellence from NoMaps Dream Pitch 2021.
* October 2021: FlyWorks receives the NEDO Award from NoMaps Dream Pitch 2021.
* October 2021: FlyWorks receives a grant from JST START Program.

Drosophila is 1000 times cheaper than mice (less than 1 cent/fly)

Drosophila reproduces 50 times more than mice (about 20 flies/day)

Drosophila reproduces the next generation 10 times faster than mice (about 10 days/generation)

Animal testing can be achieved 10,000 times more efficiently than mice

Problems with traditional animal testing

Traditional animal testing with mice faces a variety of challenges that can affect their effectiveness, efficiency, and ethical acceptability. Here are some of the primary issues:

  • 01 Time and cost

    Traditional testing methods can be time-consuming and expensive. For drugs, the development process from lab to market often takes over a decade and costs billions, largely due to the extensive testing required. Food testing also faces similar issues, especially when testing for a broad spectrum of contaminants and quality parameters.

  • Traditional animal testing with mice raises significant ethical issues. The use of mammals in research and testing is increasingly seen as inhumane, and there is growing public and regulatory pressure to reduce or eliminate animal testing and find alternative methods.

  • With the increasing pace of food production and drug development, there is a need for testing methods that can quickly and efficiently handle large volumes of samples. Traditional methods may not meet the demand, potentially slowing down product development and response times to contamination incidents.

  • Some traditional methods may not offer the precision needed for modern applications. False negatives can lead to unsafe products reaching the market, while false positives can result in unnecessary waste of safe products. This is critical in both food and drug testing where safety is paramount.

Why Drosophila?

Drosophila offers several significant advantages: it is compatible with fully automated handling systems, minimizing the need for human intervention; it is cost-effective, being 1000 times cheaper than mice; it reproduces much faster, generating many generations in a fraction of the time it takes mice; and it faces minimal ethical concerns. These benefits allow us to address the core challenges of traditional animal testing. With Drosophila, it's possible to conduct large-scale, individual-level, high-content genetic and chemical screening at high throughput and low cost. This makes testing and drug discovery processes not only more efficient but also more effective.

One of the successful examples of new drug development using Drosophila is vandetanib, a molecularly targeted drug for medullary thyroid cancer. Specifically, there was no useful mouse model that mimicked the RET gene abnormality (RET[M918T]) observed in medullary thyroid cancer patients, but Regius Professor Ross Cagan at the University of Glasgow (our collaborator) succeeded in creating the first animal model using flies. ZD6474 prolonged recurrence-free survival of patients and was approved as the first molecularly targeted drug called vandetanib for this cancer. Prof. Sonoshita (our board member) of Hokkaido University has also developed the first model fly library that mimics various genotypes of pancreatic cancer and successfully identified new therapeutic drug candidates (international patent pending, to be granted to us).

Products

Our current R&D areas

Drug seed discovery

Our primary application area for our high-throughput whole-animal analysis technology is in novel therapeutic seed discovery. Using custom human disease models (in flies!), we aim to evaluate the potential therapeutic efficacy of candidate compounds.

Therapeutic target discovery

We perform unbiased and systematic genetic screening of our disease model flies in order to elucidate novel therapeutic targets. As part of lead development, this screening could reveal off-target toxicity or areas for design improvements.

Nuanced disease modeling

Detailed genetic manipulation of human disease gene homologs in flies allow us to generate precise and nuanced whole-animal models. An active area of our R&D is in generating and fine-tuning disease models in flies.

AI training

A major area of our R&D is in developing cutting-edge AI-enhanced analysis algorithms using our huge 3D image data of whole Drosophila. We can generate approximately 5 TB of high-quality whole-body image data per day. Handling and interpreting such big data requires us to develop our custom solutions.

Consumer product testing

We are now conducting toxicology research to ensure the safety, quality, and compliance of food, cosmetic, and other household products.

Team

Founders, Engineers, Advisors

Walker Peterson

Chief Executive Officer

Masahiro Sonoshita

Chief Scientific Officer

Keisuke Goda

Chief Technology Officer

Tamiki Komatsuzaki

Technical Advisor

FAQ

Our answers to your questions

Can you really study human diseases with Drosophila?

In the way diseases occur, Drosophila and mammals are similar. In fact, Drosophila possesses more than 75% of the genes that have been found to be abnormal in human diseases such as cancer. By reproducing those genetic abnormalities, it is possible to mimic diseases.

Is the drug response of Drosophila similar to that of humans?

In terms of drug response, Drosophila and mammals are similar. In Drosophila, drugs can be easily administered by mixing them with food. The behavior of drugs in the body and the mechanism by which drugs work are similar to those of mammals.

Are there any examples of successful use of Drosophila in the development of new drugs?

Although there were no useful mouse models that mimic the RET gene abnormality (RET[M918T]) observed in medullary thyroid cancer patients, Regius Professor Ross at the University of Glasgow (our collaborator) succeeded in creating the first animal model using flies. ZD6474 prolonged recurrence-free survival in patients and was approved as the first molecularly targeted drug vandetanib for this cancer.