Ocean Biomedical

About Ocean Biomedical

Ocean Biomedical, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, that operates by identifying and accelerating the development of medical discoveries from research universities and medical centers. Founded in January 2019 by Chirinjeev Kathuria, an Indian-American physician and serial entrepreneur, the company began as a spin-off from Brown University. In February 2023, Ocean Biomedical went public on the Nasdaq (OCEA) through a merger with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Aesther Healthcare Acquisition Corp.

The company's business model is designed to bridge the gap between academic research and clinical application. It licenses promising inventions and technologies, housing each program in a subsidiary to facilitate distinct partnerships and commercialization pathways. Ocean Biomedical's revenue model is based on future product sales, licensing agreements, and research collaborations, as it is currently in a pre-revenue stage. The company's scientific foundation is built upon the work of its co-founders from Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School: Dr. Jack A. Elias and Dr. Jonathan Kurtis. Dr. Elias, a former Dean of Medicine at Brown and Chairman of Medicine at Yale, is a renowned immunobiologist whose research focuses on lung injury, repair, and diseases like cancer and pulmonary fibrosis. His work on the chitinase family of proteins, particularly Chitinase 3-like-1 (CHi3L1), is the basis for Ocean’s oncology and fibrosis programs. Dr. Kurtis is the Chair of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Brown and a specialist in molecular parasitology and transfusion medicine, whose research is dedicated to discovering interventions for malaria and schistosomiasis.

Ocean Biomedical's development pipeline is concentrated on three main areas: oncology, fibrosis, and infectious diseases. In oncology, the company is developing immunotherapy candidates targeting CHi3L1, a master regulator that suppresses the body's anti-tumor responses. These candidates, including monoclonal and bispecific antibodies, have shown the ability to reduce tumor burden by up to 95% in animal models of lung cancer and have demonstrated potential in treating glioblastoma and other solid tumors by reversing resistance to existing therapies like TKIs. The fibrosis program is advancing a small-molecule candidate, OCF-203, targeting Chitinase 1 (Chit1) to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and other fibrotic conditions. In infectious diseases, the focus is on malaria. This program, stemming from Dr. Kurtis's research, includes a vaccine candidate based on the PfGARP antigen, a monoclonal antibody, and a small-molecule drug that have shown significant efficacy in killing malaria parasites in preclinical testing. The company has received NIH grants to advance its malaria vaccine research, with plans to potentially initiate human trials.