Bind Biosciences

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History

BIND Biosciences, Inc. was launched in 2007 with the vision of revolutionizing the treatment of life-threatening diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease through the application of nanotechnology. 

After two decades and $15M of research at MIT in the area of biomaterials and nanoparticle engineering, a number of critical technologies had begun to converge in the laboratory of Professor Robert Langer that would enable the development of therapeutic targeted nanoparticles.  Building on this convergence, Professor Omid Farokhzad of Harvard Medical School began collaborating with Professor Langer to apply combinatorial strategies to develop targeted nanoparticles for specific therapeutic applications.  

This ongoing research, conducted at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital-Harvard Medical School, is currently supported in part through the MIT-Harvard Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, which is part of a $144M committment from the National Cancer Institute to nanotechnology research.  This work has been widely recognized among the pharmaceutical industry and academic community. The result of this collaboration is a fundamental understanding of the precise characteristics of an optimally engineered targeted nanoparticle for clinical applications, and now forms the basis of BIND Biosciences.  

Dr. Langer’s laboratory at MIT has been at the forefront of polymeric drug delivery systems for three decades.  His laboratory has worked at the interface of biotechnology and materials science and pioneered the development of controlled release polymer systems (1976), long circulating polymeric nanoparticles and, most recently, targeted long circulating polymeric nanoparticles.  Dr. Langer founded BIND as the platform to commercialize nanoparticle technology.

         
  Robert Langer, Sc.D.
               MIT 

       
Omid Farokhzad, M.D.              BWH / HMS    

After spending three years in Dr. Langer’s MIT lab as a Visiting Scientist developing the targeted nanoparticle technology, Dr. Farokhzad has continued to build on the platform through the incorporation of novel targeting methods and has applied it to the delivery of numerous payload classes.  His laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital-Harvard Medical School is now focused on pioneering the application of nanotechnology to a myriad of clinical applications.  

BIND Biosciences was launched with an initial financing round from Flagship Ventures and Polaris Venture Partners to build on this body of work and commercialize targeted nanoparticle therapeutics.  BIND now occupies 26,000 square feet of lab and office space in the Cambridgeport section of Cambridge, Massachusetts and is rapidly advancing its lead program to the clinic.