Gordian Bio Announces Research Collaboration with Pfizer to Accelerate In Vivo Target Discovery in Obesity

Pfizer collaboration applies Gordian’s large-scale in vivo mosaic screening platform to prioritize novel obesity targets directly within visceral adipose tissue

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#biotech--Gordian Bio, a biotechnology company pioneering large-scale in vivo functional genomics to unlock validated drug targets for chronic diseases, today announced a non-exclusive research collaboration with Pfizer to apply Gordian’s proprietary in vivo mosaic screening platform to accelerate the discovery of therapeutic targets for obesity.

Under the terms of the collaboration, Gordian will perform a screen of hundreds of gene targets directly within visceral adipose tissue. Unlike traditional ex vivo or single-target models, Gordian’s platform can obtain in vivo transcriptional readouts for hundreds of targets.

“Obesity and metabolic syndrome are systemic and multi-tissue, and traditional target discovery tools simply can’t capture the interplay between fat depots and other organs,” said Francisco LePort, Ph.D., CEO & Co-Founder, Gordian Bio. “Our in vivo mosaic screens allow us to ask hundreds of biological questions simultaneously inside living tissue, potentially providing a direct window into which gene targets truly shift adipocyte state, inflammation, insulin signaling, and metabolic pathways. We’re proud to see our platform advancing therapeutic discovery for one of the world’s most urgent health challenges.”

Gordian’s technology integrates pooled AAV libraries, tissue-specific promoters, large-scale genetic perturbation, and single-cell sequencing to map biological effects at unprecedented scale. By performing screens directly in epididymal and retroperitoneal white adipose tissue, areas that cannot be meaningfully modeled ex vivo, Gordian provides partners with granular insight into disease-relevant cell states, multi-cellular interactions, and physiological mechanisms that cannot be replicated in vitro.

“With our in vivo mosaic screening platform, we can evaluate hundreds of targets directly in the environment where we need them to work,” said Martin Borch Jensen, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer & Co-Founder, Gordian Bio. “This dataset will expand Gordian’s atlas of intervention effects in cardiometabolic disease, while providing partners with actionable, physiologically grounded insights at scale. We look forward to expanding similar collaborations across obesity and the broader cardio-renal-metabolic space.”

The agreement allows Gordian to continue advancing partnerships across obesity and other cardio-renal-metabolic indications.

About Gordian Bio

Gordian Biotechnology is an in vivo drug discovery company focused on curing age-related diseases. The company has built a high-throughput in vivo screening platform that tests thousands of gene therapies directly in living systems to predict clinical outcomes with exceptional accuracy. The platform integrates three proprietary components: Mosaic Screening for pooled in vivo testing, Patient Avatars that closely model human biology, and Pythia, a machine-learning engine that combines screening and human data to maximize predictive power. The company is based in San Francisco, CA. For more information, visit www.gordian.bio.

Media Contact
Kimberly Ha
KKH Advisors
917-291-5744
kimberly.ha@kkhadvisors.com