Adipo’s goal is to support healthy weight loss by increasing energy expenditure through the unique benefits of brown fat, as an orthogonal approach to drugs that lower calorie intake (e.g., GLP-1s). This investigational approach to weight loss may bring meaningful change for millions of people around the world seeking to manage their weight beyond dieting or calorie restriction alone.
Meng Deng, PhD, Adipo’s founder laid the foundation for Adipo at the world-renowned Purdue University. Through his expertise and pioneering research, Dr. Deng developed the core technology that would become the foundation of Adipo Therapeutics—Notch-inhibiting nanoparticles capable of converting the body's energy-storing white fat into energy-burning beige fat.
Our strength lies in our team—a group of unparalleled drug development experts, bringing an average of 30 years of experience in the industry. This world-class team, many of whom are former leaders at Eli Lilly & Company, provides the technical expertise and innovative insight necessary to advance our technology towards its first human clinical proof, setting new precedents in the treatment of obesity and related metabolic conditions.
CEO
Karen Wurster, MBA is the CEO of Adipo Therapeutic. Ms. Wurster has over 25 years of leadership experience in the pharmaceutical industry at Eli Lilly & Company, where she dedicated her career to the development and launch of treatments for diabetes, launching more than 10 diabetes products and leading in areas including New Product Planning, Life Cycle Management, Global Brand Management, and US Commercialization. Karen is a proven transformative leader with demonstrated strength in recruiting, developing, and engaging teams to deliver strong results on a shared vision of success. Her responsibilities at Adipo focus on providing a clear path to the clinical development of the technology and cultivating potential collaborators and acquisition partners. Karen has a BS in biochemistry from Indiana University, and an MBA in finance from the IU Kelley School of Business.
Chief Operating Officer
Keith brings extensive experience, industry relationships, and a passion for developing and launching blockbuster obesity and type 2 diabetes treatments. Keith has over 30 years of pharmaceutical industry and consulting experience, retiring from Eli Lilly & Company as Senior Vice President of global marketing and alliance management, in Lilly’s diabetes and obesity business unit. Keith was key in the development and launch of Lilly’s leading treatments for type 2 diabetes, obesity and related metabolic disorders including tirzepatide (Mounjaro) and dulaglutide (Trulicity). Keith’s responsibilities at Lilly also included New Product Planning, where he drove the strategy and decisions for investments and acquisitions in the emerging diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular pipeline, and the operational management of Lilly’s largest alliance with Boehringer-Ingelheim for Jardiance, Tradjenta, and Basaglar.
Keith earned a BS from Allegheny College, a MS from the University of South Carolina, and an MBA in general management and marketing from the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler School of Business.
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Hardy is an Endocrinologist with over 20 years of experience in clinical research and drug and medical device development. This includes 18 years at Eli Lilly & Company, where he held key roles working across all phases of clinical development in the Cardiometabolic Disease therapeutic area. While in Early Phase Medicine at Lilly, Dr. Hardy oversaw numerous IND filings and directed the design and implementation of over 30 phase 1 and 2 clinical trials of small and large molecule investigational agents across multiple disease areas. He subsequently directed the global registration trials and regulatory filings for late-phase assets in Lilly’s Diabetes Business Unit, resulting in the global approvals of Baqsimi® and Lyumjev®. After working at Lilly, Dr. Hardy was the Head of Drug Safety and Pharmacovigilance at Immunovant. He holds an M.D. and Ph.D. (Biochemistry) from Indiana University and completed fellowship training in Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Hardy has authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications.
Senior Vice President
of Product Development
and Global Regulatory Affairs
Sumitra Ghate is the Senior Vice President of Product Development and Global Regulatory Affairs at Adipo, bringing nearly 30 years of experience in drug development across both large pharma and emerging biotech firms. Sumitra spent almost two decades at Eli Lilly & Company, in areas of Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls (CMC) and Regulatory Affairs, and many of those years were spent in advancing diabetes therapies. Notably, she played a pivotal regulatory lead role in the development and submission of the market application for Trulicity (GLP-1 analog), as well as leading submissions across the insulins portfolio. Sumitra has also held senior leadership positions in the regenerative medicine sector, including serving as Head of Regulatory Affairs at Histogenics, Inc., and as Senior Vice President of Global Product Development and Regulatory Affairs at iTolerance, Inc. prior to joining Adipo.
Vice President of Operations
Roger Miller, MBA, MS serves as the Vice President of Operations for Adipo. He brings multiple years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and biotech start-ups including leadership roles in R&D, Manufacturing, Quality and Human Resources, and Corporate Business Development. His experience has been built in leadership roles at Eli Lilly, AcquiRight, Targanta, BioCritica, Iterion Therapeutics, Salarius Pharmaceuticals, and Apexian Pharma (Apex Therapeutics). Roger’s educational background includes two graduate degrees from Purdue University MBA in Operations and MS in Physical Chemistry. He earned his BA in Chemistry from Indiana University at Indianapolis.
Founder and Chief Scientist
Meng Deng, PhD is the Founder of Adipo Therapeutics. The breakthrough technology of Adipo Therapeutics stems from his strong commitment and 15+ years of experiences on development of biomaterials-based translational technologies for cell engineering, tissue engineering, and drug delivery. Dr. Deng is an Adjunct Faculty Member at Purdue University and formerly an Associate Professor of Biological Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Materials Engineering. Dr. Deng received a B.E. in Chemical Engineering in 2004 from Tsinghua University, China, a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2010, and conducted his postdoctoral research at the University of Connecticut Health Center and MIT. He was the recipient of Young Scientist Award from the 9th World Biomaterials Congress. His research is based on the convergence of materials science, micro/nano-scale engineering, and cell biology/medicine to develop cell-instructive biomaterials for cell engineering and musculoskeletal regenerative engineering. He serves as associate editor for Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology and on the editorial board of Regenerative Engineering and Translational Medicine.
Fractional CFO
Tom Gabbert has been a pioneer and thought leader in the outsourced accounting industry since 2003. He was the Founder and Managing Director of mACCOUNTING, LLC, VP of Operations for inDinero following the acquisition of mACCOUNTING, and most recently is the Founder and CEO of Milestone Business Solutions, Inc. Tom understands the unique challenges of starting, growing, and exiting a business. Not only has he done it twice himself, but he has guided numerous clients over the years through successful exits. Along the way, Tom has also helped his clients raise over $250M in growth capital (seed, Series A, Series B). He has a unique background that combines extensive financial and operational experience with a proven track record of client success. Tom is a Certified Public Accountant and holds an undergraduate degree in Accounting from the University of Notre Dame.
Scientific Advisor and Researcher
Dr. Considine has dedicated his career to basic research centered on understanding of obesity, diabetes, and metabolism. He has been a Professor of the Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine for over 10 years and was an Associate Professor at IU for 15 years. In addition to his responsibilities at the IU School of Medicine, Dr. Considine is also the Administrative Director of the Diabetes Center at the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute which is an independent institute for applied scientific research enabling industry and academic research partners to collaborate on projects and sponsor research to improve human health and nutrition. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware and his PhD in Physiology from Thomas Jefferson University in 1990. Dr. Considine currently consults with Adipo Therapeutics and is the lead researcher for the adult human tissues ex-vivo studies using ADPO-002NP and and ADPO-007NP.
Scientific Advisor
Over 20+ years at Eli Lilly & Company where he served as researcher and Chief Scientific Officer of Obesity Drug Discovery. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. Mark is a Fellow of the Obesity Society and has served on the SAB of Helmholtz Alliance for Imaging and Curing Environmental Metabolic Diseases (ICEMED) in Munich, Germany. He has served on the editorial boards of Endocrinology, Molecular Metabolism, and J of Hepatology & Gastroenterology.
Dr. Heiman received his PhD in Physiology from Louisiana State University School of Medicine. His postdoctoral training in neuroendocrinology was at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He joined the faculty of Medicine at Tulane University where he co-discovered the drug Lanreotide before joining Lilly. Mark has authored over 100 scientific papers and is best known for his seminal work performed at Lilly, which defined the key roles for both leptin and ghrelin in regulating energy balance.
Senior Medical Advisor
Dr. Sheetz received his MD and PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Chicago, and he did post-doctorate research at Washington University in St. Louis in Immunology. He spent 27 years in the pharmaceutical industry where he was involved in every aspect of research from early discovery through Phase IV clinical trials. While at Eli Lilly & Company, Dr. Sheetz spent over 6 years in early phase (Phase 1 and 2) clinical research group and was responsible for first-in-human trial design, planning, implementation, analysis, and interpretation. He also spent approximately 10 years of his career designing, planning and overseeing large Phase 3 clinical trial programs, most notably the study of a PKC-beta inhibitor for the treatment of diabetic complications. Dr. Sheetz is the Senior Medical Advisor for Adipo and provides input into the design and planning of the Phase 1 clinical trial program.
Scientific Advisor
Dr. Kuang is currently Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Professor of Pathology, and a member of the Duke Cancer Institute at Duke University. His work focuses on tissue stem cell research using the skeletal muscle and adipose tissue as the organ systems. He is researching the molecular regulation of stem cell fate determination and how deregulation of stem cell homeostasis leads to degenerative and chronic diseases, and he is exploring strategies to target stem cells to treat diseases such as muscular dystrophy, obesity, type 2 diabetes and cancer. He has over 150 peer-reviewed publications and was instrumental in the understanding of Notch-inhibition and its role in mitochondrial biogenesis and the beiging of white adipose tissue. Dr. Kuang received his Masters of Science from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and his PhD in Physiology and Cell Biology at the University of Alberta.
Scientific Advisor
Dod Michael, PhD has joined Adipo as a scientific advisor for in vitro and in vivo research and development. Dod has extensive experience both inside and outside of Eli Lilly & Company as a pre-clinical pharmacologist with substantial drug development experience in type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic disease. Areas of expertise include target identification, target validation including design and execution of definitive proof-of-concept studies, pre-clinical model development, and lead optimization.
Scientific Advisor
Liangju Kuang, PhD Liangju is a research fellow at Harvard University Medical School and previously worked in the Purdue University laboratory of Meng Deng, PhD and Founder of Adipo. While at Purdue, Liangju was foundational in the research that led to the development of Adipo’s Notch-inhibiting nanoparticle formulation. Today, she provides consulting support to Adipo for the development of the drug product manufacturing processes, product characterization, and analytics.
Board Chair, Adipo Therapeutics
Mike Clayman, M.D., co-founded Flexion Therapeutics in 2007 and served as president, CEO and a director from inception until its acquisition by Pacira Biosciences in November, 2021. During his tenure Dr. Clayman guided the discovery and development of ZILRETTA® for osteoarthritis-related knee pain. He currently serves as chairman of the boards of Anokion, Ribometrix, Nido Biosciences and Adipo Therapeutics.
Before founding Flexion, Dr. Clayman had a distinguished career at Eli Lilly & Company, leading numerous divisions engaged in a broad range of activities, from discovery research to clinical investigation to global regulatory affairs. Among his roles, he served as general manager of Chorus, Lilly’s early-phase development accelerator, and as vice president of Lilly Research Laboratories. Prior to Lilly, Dr. Clayman was an assistant professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where his research centered on the immunopathogenesis of renal disease.
Dr. Clayman is the recipient of the Physician Scientist Award from the National Institutes of Health. He holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.D. from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. He completed training in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and renal fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.
Adipo Therapeutics CEO
Karen Wurster, MBA is the CEO of Adipo Therapeutic. Ms. Wurster has over 25 years of leadership experience in the pharmaceutical industry at Eli Lilly & Company, where she dedicated her career to the development and launch of treatments for diabetes, launching more than 10 diabetes products and leading in areas including New Product Planning, Life Cycle Management, Global Brand Management, and US Commercialization. Karen is a proven transformative leader with demonstrated strength in recruiting, developing, and engaging teams to deliver strong results on a shared vision of success. Her responsibilities at Adipo focus on providing a clear path to the clinical development of the technology and cultivating potential collaborators and acquisition partners. Karen has a BS in biochemistry from Indiana University, and an MBA in finance from the IU Kelley School of Business.
Independent Board Member
Fred is a healthcare finance executive with over 25 years of experience leading strategic financial planning at life science biotech companies. He served as CFO of Renovacor working with a skilled and dedicated team to develop innovative precision therapies for patients battling genetically-driven cardiovascular and mechanistically-related diseases. He also served as CFO for Novavax, Inc and Flexion Therapeutics. He brings a deep track record of success from leadership roles at various life science biotech companies, including guiding financial strategy, assisting commercial product launches and spearheading initial public offerings and corporate acquisitions. He also serves on the boards of Cellectar Biosciences, Inc and Cue Biopharma.
Founder and Chief Scientist
of Adipo Therapeutics
Meng Deng, PhD is the Founder of Adipo Therapeutics. The breakthrough technology of Adipo Therapeutics stems from his strong commitment and 15+ years of experiences on development of biomaterials-based translational technologies for cell engineering, tissue engineering, and drug delivery. Dr. Deng is an Adjunct Faculty Member at Purdue University and formerly an Associate Professor of Biological Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Materials Engineering. Dr. Deng received a B.E. in Chemical Engineering in 2004 from Tsinghua University, China, a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2010, and conducted his postdoctoral research at the University of Connecticut Health Center and MIT. He was the recipient of Young Scientist Award from the 9th World Biomaterials Congress. His research is based on the convergence of materials science, micro/nano-scale engineering, and cell biology/medicine to develop cell-instructive biomaterials for cell engineering and musculoskeletal regenerative engineering. He serves as associate editor for Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology and on the editorial board of Regenerative Engineering and Translational Medicine.
Board Observer, Elevate Ventures
Gary is a seasoned professional with over 40 years of experience working in large pharma, biotech start up, and as an independent consultant. He led or supported the evaluation and negotiation of transactions involving the acquisition, disposition, and/or the licensing in/out of enabling technologies and early-stage compounds. From 2009 to 2016 he was the President, CEO and Director of Aarden Pharmaceuticals, Inc. after serving a multi-decade career at Eli Lilly & Company where he held a variety of roles including leadership roles within Corporate Business Development.
Board Observer, Prasco Ventures
Chelsea is a experience professional with diverse healthcare marketing experience both in domestic and international markets with skills in strategy, channel, business and relationship development, product management, market research, promotion, clinical engagement, regulatory and new product development. Currently, she is the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Prasco. Prior to joining Prasco, Chelsea held various roles at Battelle, Cardinal Health, and Beekley Corporation.
In contrast to the far more abundant white adipose tissue (WAT), brown adipose tissue (BAT) is more metabolically active. It is associated with increased energy expenditure, improved insulin resistance, and decreased cardiovascular risk. BAT is naturally occurring in small amounts, and even minor increases may provide therapeutic benefits in metabolic disease including obesity and type 2 diabetes.
In retrospective positron emission tomography studies, greater amounts of BAT were associated with a lower prevalence of cardiometabolic diseases. BAT was independently correlated with lower odds of type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, congestive heart failure and hypertension. In addition, individuals with greater amounts of BAT had more metabolically healthy levels of blood glucose, triglyceride and HDL. The beneficial associations of BAT with cardiovascular disease were more pronounced in individuals who were overweight or obesity, indicating that BAT might play a role in mitigating the deleterious effects of obesity. Taken together, these findings highlight a potential role for BAT in promoting cardiometabolic health. (Nature Medicine January 2021; 58–65)
ADPO-007NP is being developed with the goal of providing weight loss without calorie restriction, preservation of lean muscle, and improved blood glucose without the side effects often seen in obesity treatments. While there is not yet any data in people, this treatment is expected to be beneficial for patients who do not respond well to current treatments and for those who have low resting metabolic rate due to metabolic adaptation or age. The mechanism of action has been demonstrated in human white adipose in both in vitro and ex vivo studies of ADPO-007.
ADPO-007NP is composed of Notch-inhibiting PLGA nanoparticles and is being designed to provide rapid uptake into white fat cells, sustained intracellular drug delivery, low dose and limited biodistribution.
ADPO-007NP creates small subcutaneous beige fat depots by leveraging the natural plasticity of white fat. ADPO-007NP induces the intracellular conversion of subcutaneous white fat to metabolically beneficial beige fat through mitochondrial biogenesis and uncoupling. The amount of weight loss will be dependent on the amount of beige fat created. Approximately 1/3 pound of new browned fat could produce 25 pounds of weight loss over 12 months based on modeling done using published estimates (N Engl J Med. 2009;360:1518-25). The potential to brown human fat has been demonstrated through in vitro and ex vivo fat tissue studies.
ADPO-007NP is being developed to be a self-administered, convenient, weekly, subcutaneous injection into white adipose tissue using a small liquid volume and a small gauge needle.
ADPO-007NP has not yet been tested in people, so human safety data are not available. The Notch-inhibiting nanoparticles are being designed to provide rapid uptake into white fat cells and sustained intracellular drug delivery with the goal to deliver a low dose with minimal biodistribution to other tissues. Preclinical studies have demonstrated limited biodistribution of the nanoparticles and active ingredient beyond the targeted tissue. In preclinical studies no obvious safety signal or skin reactions have been observed. Extensive preclinical toxicology studies will be conducted prior to regulatory submission for the Phase 1 clinical program.
ADPO-007NP’s mechanism of action is different and is designed to be complementary to existing marketed obesity treatments. While current treatments work by decreasing calories consumed, treatment with ADPO-007NP has the potential to increase energy expenditure and resting metabolism to provide weight loss without calorie restrictions. In addition, the treatment may provide benefits not currently available in the market, including preservation of lean muscle and a more tolerable safety profile without the nausea and vomiting patients often experience.
