Cyclana Bio, a discovery science company

And I think, like every scientist that gets diagnosed with a condition, I probably nerded out on the papers a bit too much and read more and more about the literature in endometriosis, but also realized that a lot of the questions that came up from this reading were not answered by further papers. There was this understanding that there's lots we don't understand and don't know.

And at the same time, I was really exploring this idea of how you actually create, for a given disease, a therapeutic pipeline that's going to really get to the root cause when you know nothing necessarily about it. And I really believed at the time, and I still believe, that the important thing when you know nothing about a disease is first: what does that disease look like in humans?

So Cyclana has quite a bold mission in that we're almost trying to build the whole discovery pipeline for endometriosis. That means collecting the data to understand the disease, but also understanding patients—who is affected, how are they affected differently, is this multiple diseases? Building the models that aren't good enough yet in the disease—so how can we actually, in the lab, in a dish, build what would look like endometriosis in humans versus control to test drugs and then develop therapies.

And to add a layer of multidisciplinarity, we're considering not just cells, but also the stuff that's around the cells, called the extracellular matrix, which is effectively governed by the laws of physics rather than biology.

It's very much building from the principles of: if we do the right science, the right targets will come and they will present themselves. And then it's about choosing which ones are worth taking forward.

That means we are still doing a lot of discovery science—collecting data in the disease, building the models, understanding the disease process, and still testing what are the best ways of measuring it.

It's come from a desire of making sure we find something that works rather than necessarily taking one bet, because it's a disease that we understand so little about that building that profound understanding is absolutely necessary before we can commit to a given treatment and think: yes, this is the one mechanism and this is the one population in which I'm going to test it, because we still just don't know this information.

So if there's something where this is a process that could be cool, but probably won't lead to a drug for another 15 years, then we try to engage with academic partners and say: this is actually a very good problem to ask in academia. Because I do think there is huge value in asking questions that don't seem to initially have translation.

But in a company, it's about finding that balance between really doing the basic science that makes your ideas strong and makes your products and development strong, but not losing sight of that translation. Because at the end of the day, if you don't develop a drug based on your research, you're going to fail.

A breakthrough for us is finding a drug, a compound, something—an intervention—where women actually feel like their disease is going away, not necessarily being masked. That's what we're going after.

I think it requires a new understanding of the disease and the biology, and potentially targets that have never been targeted before—mechanisms that we've never tried to drug before. And that's really the kind of thing that we're going after for that breakthrough.

And in a way, that breakthrough also means that if we are successful, it shows that we can get disease-reversing drugs in women's health, in endometriosis, and hopefully pave the way for many more—for us to do and for others to do as well.

How we are seeing them is effectively all fitting in with each other and really bringing a holistic approach to building those three pillars within the company. Whilst some people might be more focused on specific aspects, everyone is involved in bringing them together, because actually the data we collect—for instance motifs or backgrounds of the extracellular matrix—are going to inform the models we build, because we are almost trying to reverse engineer.

So the biggest challenge facing Cyclana today is getting to the drug. But I do think we are progressing very well with the models. We've got some really good candidates.

I think there are still some very wide-scale problems in developing a drug in endometriosis that we hope not to have to solve all by ourselves.

So I do think we need to have a better path to the clinic, which means a better understanding of how to select people for trials, but also how to assess how these people are responding. So adding to pain other clinical primary outcomes, or substituting it for something where we know we're getting into the real causes of the disease—can we find ways of doing that?

I think that's a difficulty that all therapeutic companies in endometriosis are facing or will face. And I hope that's something we can solve together, because solving it together will give us the best benefit.

So despite being a for-profit company, we probably have quite a strong moral compass in that everyone has joined to make a difference and to get a drug to the clinic. Hopefully we can convey that in the discussions that we have with people.

It's a space that is very unexplored, which means there aren't many solutions. The more solutions, hopefully the more it attracts excitement, funding, and opportunity—and then the more we all benefit from it.

I think that's the way we have to treat it, because there are already limited resources and limited funding. If we start fighting each other to get to therapy, then the people who suffer are the patients who don't get the solutions.

That someone who is diagnosed with endometriosis isn't necessarily faced with this inevitable progression towards possibly a hysterectomy in the worst cases, but actually is able to have a treatment option that addresses and cures the disease.

I think a big worry is that these lesions are there—what happens to them in the future? So I really hope we can get to a treatment that means people feel like they're healthy again, not like they have something chronic that they have to manage, but that they can go about their lives and not worry about it.

I definitely personally felt this worry: there is this huge proportion of infertility associated with the disease. My whole career and children plan was that of a healthy person—I have to rethink that completely as someone with endometriosis.

And I want to remove not just the pain that women feel, but also all these other symptoms that come with having a chronic, incurable condition. So get to a cure. Disease-reversing.

So that's the number one goal. Hopefully that will be in less than ten years.

Everyone's voice is listened to equally, and people can work in a real team without necessarily worrying about hierarchy. And that's where I think a lot of the best discoveries come from—where people don't think about ego or self-promotion, but say: a victory for someone else is also a victory for me.

I think what makes us strong as a team at Cyclana is truly how great a basic science we're doing in tissue-level biology more broadly. And I hope that this can shed light beyond endometriosis.

So even if we do successfully get a drug for endometriosis, what can we do next? What other diseases can we address? How can we leverage this understanding we've built about tissue biology to cure other chronic inflammatory diseases and other diseases that are crippling people more broadly?

So I hope we keep doing the really groundbreaking science that is leading us to making a better society with healthier people.

Editor’s note: This article has been faithfully transcribed from the original interview filmed with the author, and carefully edited and proofread. Edit date: 2025