Pear Bio

Pear Bio is a computational biology company that operates a functional precision medicine platform for oncology. The company takes fresh tumor biopsies from patients, grows the cells in a tumor-specific hydrogel matrix as 3D immune-microtumors within parallel organ-on-a-chip microphysiological systems, and tests multiple candidate drugs and drug combinations side by side ex vivo. Cultures are imaged on days 0, 1, 2 and 3, and a proprietary computer vision and machine learning pipeline extracts image-based spatial biomarkers from time-course 3D microscopy data, measuring live and dead cell counts, microtumor size, and cell migration and invasion. Samples are split into 12 or more equal groups, two of which serve as controls, and the platform returns a readout of relative drug effectiveness for an individual patient sample within a week of receiving the biopsy.

Alongside personalized testing, Pear Bio runs a drug discovery arm. Patient data and excess tumor tissue are characterized using advanced multi-omic analysis to identify novel druggable targets, particularly for patient populations that do not respond to approved therapies. According to its investor SOSV, the company has internal drug discovery programs against five novel druggable targets, four in synthetic lethality and one immuno-modulatory. The company offers both Drug Discovery and Personalized Testing services to external collaborators.

Founding story

Duleek Ranatunga is Founder and CEO and has led Pear Bio since January 2019; William Lin is listed as CTO and Co-Founder. Prior to Pear Bio, Ranatunga co-founded Ourotech, a CRO for oncology drug development, was Entrepreneur in Residence at Merck Group and at Singularity University, and conducted research on hydrogels for tissue engineering and nanomaterial-based water treatment at the University of Waterloo.

Business model

Pear Bio provides Personalized Testing and Drug Discovery services, inviting external organizations to collaborate on either line; its platform is positioned to both optimize clinical cancer care and support pharmaceutical drug development.

Traction

SOSV reports that Pear Bio has tested approximately 200 patients to date, spanning nine cancers, and holds internal drug discovery programs against five novel druggable targets. The company states it has successfully grown and treated eight different cancer types, initially focusing on breast and kidney cancer, with development work conducted through multiple clinical trials with NHS hospitals in London and beyond. A preprint reporting interim results from the PEAR-TNBC trial, on predicting pathological complete response in triple-negative breast cancer, was posted in October 2024.

Latest developments

In October 2024, Pear Bio released a preprint titled "Developing a functional precision medicine assay to predict pathological complete response in patients with triple-negative breast cancer: Interim results from the PEAR-TNBC Trial," authored by investigators including Peter Hall, Matthew Williams, Marios Konstantinos Tasoulis, Cliona C Kirwan, Susan Cleator, Steve Chan and Duleek Ranatunga. The company also states it is expanding to further tumor types and has permission from Revvity, Inc. to reproduce copyrighted video material dated 2024.