“The quality of the science, the quality of the academics, is every bit as good as it is in Boston, and I went to MIT, so I kind of know. So to us this is like the perfect place to be.”
This story was originally published in Rhode Island Current, a publication partner of Ocean State Stories.
PROVIDENCE — Frank Menniti shares lab space for his work as chief science officer for a company developing a new drug for Alzheimer’s disease.
But soon Menniti will have his own pad: The company MindImmune Therapeutics will have new office and research space at Ocean State Labs in Providence, as one of five life science companies selected for the facilities’ inaugural cohort. A roster of state leaders convened Wednesday morning at the labs on Richmond Street in Providence to announce and celebrate the five companies expected to begin using the sparkly new lab spaces early next year.
Menniti went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. And while people say Cambridge is the place to be for cutting-edge scientific research, the city “is not all it’s cracked up to be,” Menniti told reporters.
“This seems like a much better place to be able to thrive,” Menniti said of Providence, citing its central location and closeness to other research centers. “It’s simpler to get around. The quality of the science, the quality of the academics, is every bit as good as it is in Boston, and I went to MIT, so I kind of know. So to us this is like the perfect place to be.”
The Ocean State Labs comprises 30,000 square feet of wet lab and office space. It’s one initiative of the quasi-public Rhode Island Life Science Hub, which was authorized by a $45 million, three-year infusion from state lawmakers in 2023. The hub spent a chunk of 2024 shaping its board and leadership, and the Rhode Island Senate finally named Dr. Mark A. Turco as its CEO and president in .
“With our five anchor member companies and a healthy pipeline of potential new member companies and the scientific and technology development being done in our region, we are primed for success,” Turco told the crowd of a few dozen people.
Turco said the plan is to have 60 to 80% of the available lab spaces filled within one year of the labs’ scheduled opening in January. The space can accommodate up to 20 or 30 companies.
In addition to MindImmune, the initial cohort includes:
- Pax Therapeutics, which had its start in Rhode Island Hospital labs, and is working on gene-delivery technology to aid ligament and tendon healing to improve mobility.
- XM Therapeutics, a Providence-based biotech firm focused on creating therapies that can repair dysfunctions in the extracellular matrix, involved in conditions that affect organs like the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and more.
- P53 Therapeutics, a company developing antitumor drugs that target p53, a gene whose mutations are implicated in some cancers.
- OncoLux, which is working on optical imaging and AI tools that can guide cancer surgery.
Also in attendance at Wednesday’s event was Gov. Dan McKee, who posed the labs as a crown jewel in his efforts to develop the state’s economy and workforce.
“Thirty-six thousand new private sector jobs have been added in the last four years, and this project is right at the center of what we’re doing,” McKee said.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley and House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi also attended, as did Sen. Lou DiPalma, a Middletown Democrat who stood in for Senate President Valarie Lawson, who was unable to attend.
Expanding life sciences capacity
The 150 Richmond Street building will share tenancy with the Rhode Island State Health Laboratory and spaces rented by Brown University. The Life Science Labs will be managed by Portal Innovations, a venture capital firm that runs similar spaces in Chicago, South Boston, Houston, and Atlanta.
John Flavin, the CEO of Portal Innovations, said Big Pharma looks to his company “to try to identify up-and-coming ecosystems that don’t have boots on the ground yet, but are promising in terms of the science.”
That outside interest is already here, Turco said, noting that a firm from Perth, Australia, visited the state this week to explore a possible presence here. Turco added later that the labs will hopefully form part of a longer pipeline that will keep university and local in-state.
“A lot of the companies that will be coming out of our academic institutions and health systems, hopefully will now be able to be housed here in Rhode Island,” Turco said, adding that companies which “translate out of our academic institutions will be in the incubator for around 18 to 24 months.”
“And then what we want to do is have space for those companies once they have scale to continue to scale, right here in Rhode Island, as opposed to going to other states in the country,” Turco said.
The team at MindImmune certainly wants to stay in the state. They’re working on a biologic drug that seeks to target and slow the progression of Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Recent research has implicated immune system disorder and the resulting inflammation as drivers in dementias.
Robert Nelson, the company’s vice president, said the drug is based on research that suggests immune cells implicated in Alzheimer’s “actually come in from the blood into the brain, and we found a way to keep them out of the brain.”
“The idea, very simply, is, if we can stop that inflammatory response in the brain by keeping the cells from going there in the first place, we’ll have individuals who may still have a head full of plaques, but they are still cognitive,” Nelson said.
Menniti said that MindImmune’s drug, currently known by the codename MITI-101, is a humanized antibody — a drug made from living cells, and the basis of all biologic therapies, which require special handling and storage and work differently from so-called “small molecule” drugs often taken orally.
Biologic drugs have multiplied in the past two decades, firming up clinical options for treating cancers and chronic illnesses which involve the immune system, such as psoriasis, Crohn’s disease, and lupus. A 2023 chart from The Antibody Society shows that antibody-based drugs have received increasingly more approvals by federal regulators since 2000.
Menniti said the company is developing its cell line that will make the antibodies, after which the drug can undergo toxicity studies. He expects that, if all goes according to plan, the company will be able to apply for Investigational New Drug status late next year — the first step in getting a drug to undergo the clinical trials that precede possible federal approval and marketing.
Menniti is not sure yet if the company will relinquish its current lab space at the University of Rhode Island (URI). What does MindImmune intend to do at the Providence labs anyway?
The same thing it does at URI, Menniti said: Take slices of brain, expose them to antibodies and dyes, then generate and evaluate pictures for an antibody’s possible usefulness.
The process involves a lot of microscope slides, Menniti said — so many, in fact, that he told reporters his title is usually “Chief Slide Officer.”
