Synbio startup rBIO readies R-biolin, biosimilar insulin, for clinical trial

Today, Houston-based rBIO, a biotech startup on a mission to reduce the cost of insulin by 30%, announced an important step toward commercialization of its biosimilar insulin, R-biolin. rBIO's lead biologic drug, R-biolin, aims to disrupt the $90bn insulin market through a biosimilar manufacturing technique that can be massively scaled to yield significant cost savings

rBIO Chief Executive Officer Cameron Owen (left) and Chief Scientific Officer Deenadayalan Bakthavatsalam (right)

BACKGROUND

rBIO was co-founded in 2020 by Cameron Owen after completing his graduate healthcare management degree at Johns Hopkins. There, in 2018, his idea for a pharmacogenomics company won "Most Original Idea" at the university’s business plan competition. Cameron had earlier secured a B.Sc in microbiology from UA University of Arizona.

For the next two years, rBIO's small team of scientists combined their skills in genetics, bioengineering, and bioinformatics toward achieving their goal of reducing the cost of insulin by 30 percent.

With very little seed money, they progressively optimized their technique and achieved a viable scale-up target in mid-2022.

A MAJOR MILESTONE

Today, rBIO announced that it has completed all the required analytical characterizations of its insulin biosimilar, R-biolin. This positions the company to file for the 351(k) drug submission process — an abbreviated licensure pathway for biological products shown to be biosimilar to or interchangeable with an FDA-licensed reference product.

Next stop: signing a CRO to manage a clinical study to determine whether R-biolin has the same pharmacological and immunogenicity properties as a reference drug, Novo Nordisk’s Novolin.

Read more about rBIO’s launch, which was also managed by ZingPR.