About

We've reinvented how biologic drugs are made

Lumen's patented technology allows us to use the well-known food algae spirulina to deliver therapeutic proteins. 

Patented technology with unlimited potential

The astonishingly high cost of traditional drug development meant that using orally delivered biologics to address therapeutic targets in the GI tract and other topical sites wasn’t commercially viable. That’s no longer true. Lumen’s patented biologic drug platform shortens the development process, reduces costs and risks, and accelerates time-to-market, making us the first company to make orally delivered antibody drugs commercially viable.

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$84M

invested to date

33

issued patents

19

other patents pending

01

Formation

  • Incorporated April 2017

  • Foundational IP, core team, assets acquired from two predecessor entities

02

Funding

  • $84 million in platform investment to date

03

Intellectual Property

  • 25 issued patents 

  • Issued patents include broad, composition-of-matter claims covering engineered spirulina, recognition that Lumen was the first in the world to engineer spirulina

  • Broad continuation claims cover all long-term contemplated products

  • 17 other patents pending

 

04

Physical Capabilities

  • 77 FTEs, including >25 with MDs, PhDs, and other post-graduate degrees

  • Fully integrated, on-premise, dedicated cGMP production facility with capacity for several kilograms of drug product per week

  • Full-time clinical operations and FDA regulatory affairs team

  • High-throughput strain engineering facility

  • Advanced protein engineering and optimization

  • Large-scale AI/machine learning–enabled yield optimization facility

  • On-premise antibody selection and optimization capabilities (hit to the lead clinic), including advanced in silicoprotein engineering and optimization

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A typical biosciences company assembles a group of individuals with a relatively narrow set of skills within a discipline and goes about its business. At Lumen, it’s the particularity of our key scientists’ individual skills and experiences—and the interplay among them—that have been a catalyst to discover and exploit the potential of this new platform organism. As a true platform company, we’re able to create our own portfolio of commercially viable biologic therapies, while establishing a foundation upon which an entirely new generation of scientific discoveries and therapies will be brought to market.

It’s widely known that the most creative and successful teams are drawn from disparate fields. Building Lumen’s platform from the foundation up made this natural for us, and it’s a privilege to work with leaders from such diverse backgrounds. 

Brian Finrow

CEO & Co-Founder

Expertise. Ingenuity. Execution.

We’ve assembled a talented group of leaders with deep expertise in synthetic biology, protein design, immunology, photobioreactor engineering and cell physiology, each with the vision and skills needed to achieve our mission.

Leadership

Brian Finrow

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

  • Adaptive Biotechnologies

  • AltAir Fuels

  • Cooley, LLP

  • Harvard Law School

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Jim Roberts

Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer

  • Director, Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center, Basic Sciences Division

  • Former HHMI Investigator

  • Co-inventor of a mammalian cell

  • Transformation technology

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Craig Behnke

EVP, Production/Development

  • Sapphire Energy

  • Takeda Pharmaceuticals

  • University of Washington, PhD, Biochemistry

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Eric Orse

Chief Financial Officer

  • Varolii Corp

  • eCharge Corporation

  • Price Waterhouse

  • Veteran VC-backed tech company and early stage CFO

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Carl Mason

VP, Clinical

  • AFRIMS

  • Parexel

  • Johns Hopkins University, MS, MPH

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John Morrow

COO and General Counsel

  • Apptio

  • Verafore

  • Paymentus

  • Venture Law Group / Heller Ehrman

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Steve Landas

VP & Controller

  • Seattle Genetics

  • Cascadian Therapeutics

  • Xcyte Therapies

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Karina Mounivong

VP, Human Resources

  • Nintex

  • Varolii Corporation

  • ZymoGenetics, Inc.

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Kole Krieger

VP, Business Development

  • Absci

  • Linfield University

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Barry Stoddard

  • Member, Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center, Basic Sciences Division

  • Structural biology and protein design

Richard Guerrant

  • Founding Director, Center for Global Health

  • Professor of International Medicine, University of Virginia, Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health

James Lord

  • Assistant Member, Benaroya Research Institute

  • Gastroenterology, University of Washington School of Medicine

George McDonald

  • Professor Emeritus, Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center, Clinical Research Division, Gastroenterology

  • Professor Emeritus, University of Washington Medical School

Jim Nataro

  • Professor and Chair, Pediatrics

  • University of Virginia School of Medicine 

Scott Hensley

  • Associate Professor of Microbiology Penn Institute for Immunology

  • University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Vincent Fischetti

  • Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology, Rockefeller University in New York

  • Microbiology, New York University

Brian Finrow

CEO & Co-Founder, Lumen

Jim Roberts, MD, PhD

CSO & Co-Founder, Lumen

Rob Carlson

Bioeconomy Capital

Mark Litton

Athira Pharma

Marcos Milla

Samsara BioCapital

Erik Anderson

WestRiver Group

Funding Organizations

Lumen’s technology presents a new way to target diseases that traditional biopharma technologies have failed to solve, so we are thankful for the significant funding support we have received from a range of private foundations, NGOs and government agencies.

Research Collaborators

In many cases the cutting edge of discovery is carried out at non-commercial research institutions like universities and government labs. We are honored to be working closely with so many researchers who are leaders in their respective fields.

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Inspired by science. Driven by results.

We are always on the lookout for creative, motivated people who want to make a difference.

See open positions