Blockchain startup Ambrosus teams up with Trek Therapeutics

As part of the collaboration, Ambrosus will conduct pilot projects with Trek to monitor the quality, safety and integrity of all stages of the pharmaceutical manufacturing process. According to a press release Ambrosus is building the world’s first publicly-verifiable, community-driven ecosystem to ensure the quality, safety, and origins of essential products, such as food, medicine and commodities by combining high-tech sensors, blockchain, and powered by smart contracts.

Trek Co-founder and CEO Dr. Ann Kwong said, “Currently the pharmaceutical manufacturing process is highly regulated by pharmaceutical manufacturers and by regulatory authorities in an extremely labor-intensive and expensive manner. We hope to partner with Ambrosus to create a continuous monitoring and tracking system that will be less labor intensive, less expensive, and more transparent to all parties with a stake in quality pharmaceutical manufacturing. Our goal is to develop a system that is robust enough that Trek can submit data to support our manufacturing application for regulatory approval of our drugs from the FDA and EMA authorities.”

“Additionally, patients currently have no way to ascertain the quality of the medicines they ingest. Trek believes it is important to be able to demonstrate to patients that while our drugs are affordable, they’re also of the highest quality,” Dr Kwong added.

Ambrosus Co-Founder and CEO Angel Versetti said, “Following the successful implementation of the Ambrosus protocol in global food supply chains, we are delighted to now apply our blockchain protocol to help ensure the quality, safety and integrity of another vitally important product — pharmaceuticals.”

Trek Therapeutics, PBC is a privately-held, public-benefit corporation developing treatments for serious infections. Its mission is to provide cost-effective, affordable, and accessible medicines to treat patients that suffer from infectious diseases and commercialize them for global populations. Since the company’s founding in 2014, Trek has raised US$10M in Series A funding. Trek’s management team and board of directors is comprised of seasoned drug-development executives from Vertex, Schering Plough/Merck, Pharmasset/Gilead, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Celgene Global Health, Idenix, and Genzyme.

“Trek is focused on developing safe, novel medicines for infectious diseases at affordable and accessible prices. The pharmaceutical supply chain encompasses many phases and a multitude of stakeholders, requiring responsible parties to seek new methods of guaranteeing the quality and integrity of critical products. As Trek continues their mission to develop pharmaceuticals for budget-constrained patients across North America and Europe, our partnership will help to develop protocols to provide transparency and quality assurance during each phase of the process,” added Versetti.

As part of the pilot projects, Ambrosus’s protocol will work to verify and track the entire manufacturing chain from the primary chemical starting materials through multiple steps of synthesis, purification, and verification of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API); followed by formulation of the API into drug product; packaging, labeling, storage, and shipping to clinical trial sites.

“Backed by a superb core team of developers, advisors, and researchers, Ambrosus’ protocol will provide the transparency necessary in our manufacturing process to help ensure the integrity of supply chains. With our commitment to providing affordable high quality medicine, we believe this partnership could revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry quality control of manufacturing at every stage from plant to patient,” Dr. Kwong said.

Joining the Ambrosus team as an Advisor is blockchain luminary Jaron Lukasiewicz. Speaking on the announcement, Versetti added: “Ambrosus is excited to welcome Jaron Lukasiewicz as our Strategic Advisor. As a highly-respected blockchain industry figure we are eager to utilize his invaluable expertise as we lead up to our September token sale and beyond.”

Jaron Lukasiewicz has been a notable bitcoin and blockchain industry figurehead since 2012. Lukasiewicz founded and served as CEO of Coinsetter, a New York City-based bitcoin exchange, which was acquired by Kraken, the world’s largest digital asset exchange in Euro volume, in January 2016. The sale was, at the time, the largest M&A deal in bitcoin history. Lukasiewicz also served as CEO of Cavirtex (Canadian Virtual Exchange), the oldest and largest Canadian bitcoin exchange, which was also acquired by Kraken in 2016. Since the acquisition, Lukasiewicz has served as an active advisor to several blockchain companies and blockchain investment funds in addition to his role as the CEO of WRKFLOW.

Jaron Lukasiewicz said: “I am excited about the future of the Ambrosus project and equally the team behind it, who together carries decades of experience in their target markets. Ambrosus can become a fundamental technology utilized in sectors ranging from food to pharma, stretching the boundaries of what blockchain technology can accomplish in real world applications.”

(Press release)