How Cyclarity Therapeutics is Taking On the World’s Leading Killer

6 min read

Oki O’Connor (L) with Cyclarity co-founders Michael Kope and Amelia Anderson, at their HQ in Novato at the Buck Institute.

By Chrissa Olson.

You think you don’t know someone with atherosclerosis, but it’s likely you actually do. Atherosclerosis is the build-up of oxidized cholesterol in arteries, an underlying factor in an astonishing 50% of deaths in Western society. An indicator of dementia, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, lung disease, and more, it’s one of the first detectable signs of aging.

As co-founder and CEO of scientific affairs at Cyclarity Therapeutics, Matthew “Oki” O’Connor directs a team developing a drug to neutralize this killer.

Oki’s potentially life-saving breakthrough came in the form of the least scientific experiment imaginable. In early 2018, he worked in Mountain View at the SENS Research Foundation, which is dedicated to finding cures for aging-related disease. It was on a quiet Friday night when everyone in the lab was either out sick, traveling, or home, that he decided to test out their first prototype.

All he did was place oxidized cholesterol into water, fogging it up. Then he added the prototype.

When he shook it, the foggy water became clear, as did the magnitude of his breakthrough. He was watching the medicine he’d been working on for ten years treat the problem he’d been thinking of for twenty.

For the past 25 years, Oki dedicated his research to aging – and he wanted to confront the biggest killer in not just his field, but the world.

“It took my breath away,” Oki says of the unscientific experiment. “It was unexpected that it would be so dramatic, and to almost have an epiphany when you can see the future, I could see this was a fork in my life, that my life was going to change after I saw this, and that it was going to be something big.”

And now, after years of development, Cyclarity has developed from that first prototype a first-in-class drug, UDP-003, which has the potential to help hundreds of millions of patients.

The drug is a bit like Pacman – while chemically complex, its function is “simple,” Oki says. Opening and closing on a hinge, it basically binds to oxidized cholesterol and carries it out of the body. The simplicity means patients should just turn out healthier after taking it, with minimal side effects.

Things fell into place after that first experiment. Two years later, he co-founded Cyclarity with Amelia Anderson and Michael Kope. UDP-003 was the kind of drug so revolutionary that he was looking for somebody, anybody, to tell him it wouldn’t work.

But it did, and it’s going into humans this month in their first in-human trial at CMAX, a leading clinical research center in Australia, with the effort led by Dr. Stephen Nicholls, one of the top cardiologists in the world. The connection allows him to make new connections, run his trial, meet top professors, and recruit patients.

Starting a company meant he was stepping outside his focus as just a scientist – suddenly, he had to be not just an expert on aging and a biotech CEO – he was also HR. Negotiating with contractors, managing 11 employees and over 100 consultants, scaling from producing milligrams to kilograms of their product – all has taught his team to wear several hats.

Oki hotdesking at Bakar Bio Labs, where Cyclarity is a member of the CABL program.

For Oki, being a member of “Community Access Bakar Labs (CABL),” a virtual tenancy program, has given Cyclarity a boost.

“It’s really the energy and community there, the network that it gives you access to, that drew me to it and continues to keep me involved with Bakar Labs,” Oki says.

He and his team have raised $25 million to date, from seed investments and grants. Most recently in December, they closed the first $6.4 million of their Series A funding for testing in healthy volunteers, and a second tranche of an estimated $2.6-5.6 million is still to come to fund testing for patients with heart disease. Their first round of patients are set to be dosed later this month.

“People talk about how much money you can make by inventing a really big drug, and people talk about blockbuster drugs, and that’s all great,” Oki says. “I want to make a billion dollars for me and my investors – who doesn’t like money? But what I really want to do is save a billion lives. I don’t think me, or anybody involved with my company will be a true billionaire until we save a billion lives.”