Alex Martinez is the chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Intrinsic Medicine, a research company dedicated to harnessing the therapeutic potential of human breast milk to combat diseases linked to immune and microbiome dysregulation. The company has created a unique replica that mimics the probiotics found in human breast milk, offering potential treatments for conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and other diseases.
Few business leaders have a resume as diverse as Alex Martinez. A co-founder of Intrinsic Medicine, he also advises healthcare startups led by women and minorities, holds a Juris Doctor degree, and previously served as Director at Ionis Pharmaceuticals. His impact even extends to national policy- having contributed to drafting parts of the Affordable Care Act.
However, before getting to human breast milk and human milk oligosaccharide (HMO) research, Martinez began his healthcare journey growing up on a farm in Maryland. He states, “My unique background was pivotal because I spent so much time around animals observing natural ontologies. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV, so I’m watching ecosystems…. I cared about feeding animals and what they were eating.”
Alex Martinez
Martinez attended University of Pennsylvania and spent his free time working with children with ASD. This instructional opportunity helped him realize what he “really wanted to do, which was combine care, education, and society.” Inspired by these experiences and his newfound public health direction, he interned at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and eventually attended law school. Soon after he found himself on a trajectory to Silicon Valley. With the intent to constantly bolster his own skill set to make a difference, Martinez eventually created a digital health company before it was even considered an industry class. This innovation ultimately led to Martinez drafting part of the Affordable Care Act.
From here he was “given the unique opportunity to be part of a core, very small, business team” on a biotech company called Ionis Pharmaceuticals. Ionis “was creating the third drug development platform focused on targeting mRNAs.” In Martinez’s time with the company, Ionis went from “an early mid-stage clinical company to getting the first spinal muscular atrophy drug in history.” Now, Martinez’s latest health innovation has led him to co-founding Intrinsic Medicine and starting to conduct research on the therapeutic potential of probiotics found in human breast milk.
The Founding of Intrinsic Medicine
When Jason Ferrone, the other co-founder of Intrinsic Medicine, took charge of regulatory affairs at Ionis Pharmaceuticals, he and Martinez began to speculate about the epidemic that is chronic illness. Both noticed a lack of drugs geared toward chronic illness “that [are] suitable…for broader populations and more vulnerable patient populations.”
“If you look at current drug approvals, on average those drugs cost like a quarter million dollars in the end, and most of them have black box warnings. When did this become standard?” Martinez questions. When creating Intrinsic Medicine, the co-founders asked, “What do all these different chronic diseases have in common? We’re thinking about them siloed, but in fact they’re just different manifestations of common causality. What might that causality be?” An imbalance in the gut microbiome.
Probiotics and Gut Health
The human gut functions as another world inside your body. It is made of trillions of microorganisms and disrupting their structure and habitat can have some serious consequences. Gut microbiome research began decades ago, and early microbiome testing involved removing and altering microbiome bugs and placing them back inside the gut. However, early microbiome testing failed as the newly altered bugs were unable to survive in the gut microbiome. Research eventually shifted to donor feces transplants which are not extremely reliable and have a serious infection risk. The lack of success and safety opened innovation opportunities for new gut health research and treatments. Taking advantage of this opening, Martinez and his team made the treatment decision to get rid of donors all together.
Instead of altering existing microbiome bugs or hunting down perfect donor matches, their goal uses prebiotics to match a healthy feces donor’s gut microorganisms without having to use them. Martinez states that even if you have dysbiosis you still have some “populations of the bugs that you do want to be the majority of the population. So, if you precision deliver them the resources to outgrow and reclaim their territory” the gut should be able to help itself. Instead of requiring a healthy donor’s microorganisms “We can go upstream and just shift your own.” This probiotic research lead Martinez and the Intrinsic Medicine team to an infant nutritional lab to look at sugars and probiotics in human breast milk.
Advantages of Breast Milk
Human breast milk contains complex sugars called human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), and they are the third largest component in human breast milk. They are prebiotics that foster the development of a baby’s immune system, can reduce their risk of infection, and enhance their brain cognition and development. They have over 200 different structural makeups and promote the initial colonization of a baby’s microbiome. Martinez and his team concluded that human milk oligosaccharides might be the answer to their chronic illness questions. Their HMO discovery inspired Intrinsic Medicine to create their own version of HMOs called human-identical milk oligosaccharides (HiMOs) to answer the question, “Can these complex sugars also treat adults with chronic illness diseases?”
Human-Identical Milk Oligosaccharides
One of Intrinsic Medicine’s goals is to do no harm. This message is “coded into Intrinsic Medicine’s DNA,” Martinez says. This means they are not interested in taking human milk from mothers but rather using it as a guideline to create their own version of these complex sugars called human-identical milk oligosaccharides (HiMOs). Their sights are set on mimicking over 200 different sugar structures and have already started development of two different HiMOs, 2FL and 3SL.
Martinez states that Intrinsic Medicine is “really at the tip of the iceberg here. These are just the initial 2 out of 200. We use synthetic biology products as we would never want it to hurt a donor milk supply. Both of those compounds [2FL and 3SL] already have data in human beings showing that they’re extremely safe and well tolerated.” Each compound “has a whole host of preclinical data that shows disease-modifying effects… based on the biological fingerprint of each drug.”
2FL: A Possible Parkinson’s Drug
2FL, otherwise known as 2’-fucosyllactose, is a type of complex sugar making up about 30% of human milk oligosaccharides. Intrinsic Medicine has successfully been approved for patient studies, had three FDA interactions, and are cleared to begin dosing their version of 2FL in Australia. Martinez reports it has been tested in “5 different models of Inflammatory Bowel Disease with wonderful effects. It worked in all different patients and in two different severe neurodegeneration models. With oral dosing after an injury, like a stroke or hemorrhage, it recovered motor function and increased brain drive” as well as improved the production of growth and development proteins.
Martinez explained he and his team looked at the data and said, “We certainly have a drug that’s compelling for IBS. And when we looked at the data, including effects on the neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation, we think we have a Parkinson’s drug.” There’s a “strong basis of evidence, including a massive epidemic study…that points to the fact that Parkinson’s should be evaluated as a gut-immune-brain-axis disorder.”
While this HiMO has the potential to treat IBS and Parkinson’s, there is also the possibility it could treat Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Martinez thinks, “There could be an autism application because 40 to 80% of people have a GI complication directly related to bowel movements. A lot of that reverse translational stuff… also is impacting behavior.” Martinez’s extensive background working with autistic individuals has helped him and his team connect some of the dots between gut environment and behavioral patterns.
3SL: Anti Inflammatory Probiotic
In pursuit of developing another HiMO, the Intrinsic Medicine team have been researching causes for chronic illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and suspect the culprit might be chronic inflammation. Numerous chronic illnesses are caused by or worsened by chronic inflammation. Acute inflammation and regulated cortisol levels are normal and expected, but Martinez states that “cortisol is a great thing short term, but long term it flips all these biological switches the wrong way, and you have chronic toxicities. There’s all these super powerful immunosuppressants that are suppressing our immune system,” and the long-term effects can include certain cancers, strokes, and cardiovascular problems.
Intrinsic Medicine’s research in breast milk and HMOs led to a study focused on 3’-Sialyllactose, or 3SL. It is another sugar-based polymer found in human milk oligosaccharides that functions as a source of energy and a type of food for gut bacteria. The Intrinsic Medicine team is now testing and developing a second human-identical milk oligosaccharide modeled after 3SL, which is focused on treating chronic inflammation and, by extension, chronic illness.
Martinez enthusiastically elaborates exactly how 3SL aims to mimic a baby’s immune system. He explains, “A baby’s immune system … is very reactive, and so I think it’s important for these HMOs to kind of balance out that immune response to reduce the collateral damage. So, I think that they’re training and a buffer… for the maturing immune system.” The HMOs exist to create resolution pathways to restore inflamed tissues back to normal inflammation levels. “They’re not compromising a baby’s ability to mount that initial response against the pathogen as part of the healing process, but they’re a boundary condition to promote the natural resolution curve.” This is extremely important because if you are constantly in “an inflamed state, you are in maintenance mode, and you have to resolve that inflammation in order to be in developmental growth mode.” So, if a body is constantly in maintenance mode fighting chronic inflammation, it has no time to grow and evolve. Instead, the body is left vulnerable, resulting in the development of chronic illnesses.
Intrinsic Medicine’s version of 3SL comes in an oral dose that aims to implement a buffer in the gut biome to create new resolution pathways and reduce the amount of inflamed tissue in the body, especially the gut. Decreasing chronic inflammation can minimize the symptoms of certain chronic illnesses, making them easier to manage.
Chronic Illness Recovery
Martinez continuously emphasizes what everyone can do to help themselves, especially those suffering from chronic illnesses and gut microbiome dysregulation. Instead of defaulting to a new drug, make some positive lifestyle changes and see how your health improves. He states that people need to “take an active role. Don’t be passive. There’s a lot that you can do today.” Takin control of your health starts with the two most important things, exercise and eating right.
Whole foods with “plant-based fibers do produce a lot of the benefits, including helping to restore a healthy microbiome” Martinez conveys. “Only 5% of American adults are at their dietary fiber goals. So, think about how many people that really just by changing their diet…can make meaningful progress.”
Exercise goes hand in hand with eating whole foods. “A lot of the interest in the gut microbiome is coming because of the strong association with neurodegenerative, cognitive decline disorders” and physical exercise. “It is out there in the scientific literature. It is one of the best things to do,” Martinez advises. “You don’t have to instantly become a cross fitter. Just get out and do regular mild to moderate, cardiovascular” exercise. “Just getting out there and doing something will produce benefit.” “Take that first little step, make it regular… and you’ll start to feel better.” Whether it’s dietary or exercise, “view it as a journey. View it as one that that everyone can do.”
“That’s… information that I want to kind of put out there.” Martinez says. “I don’t want people searching for a supplement or… saying when can I get …these magical drugs? There’s something that you can do right now. It starts in your own kitchen. And then if you’re still having a problem, I’ll meet you there. I’ll meet you there soon.”
“I want to create resources that people can empower themselves.” Martinez states. “When I am delivering these new medicines, I’m meeting them in a place where they’re already having the lifestyle modifications, where they already have been empowered to take action on their own. And if they still need help, I have a safe, new tool for them.”
The Future of Gut Health
“The funny thing is, we’ve been told for a while, we’re about 10 years ahead. Now I’m six years into this, so I’m hoping that the tide has turned, and I think it has,” Martinez reveals. “I think that the microbiome is being implicated in everything.” He notes that Intrinsic Medicine has “been hanging out with a different perspective and we’ve laid this foundation that we believe we have really a unique opportunity to lead this” new wave of medicine.
Some may not have heard of Intrinsic Medicine and their monumental research before because Martinez wants to “deliver on something before I really step on the soapbox.” He states that he is concerned that “every day you see pop science media” saying “Hey, these scientists covered this new thing that’s gonna be the game changer, and it turns out it was…10 years away from even being in a clinical study.” These unrealistic pipe-dream announcements are not the way Intrinsic Medicine operates. Martinez states that “we have a lot of work to do and it’s going to last for a long time, and we believe it’s going to yield some really transformative, new solutions for people.” Intrinsic Medicine is currently working on the announcement of their first patient’s dose and anticipate this to come in the next 6 months.
One of the many reasons this attitude is such a large part of the Intrinsic Medicine identity is Martinez was a patient himself. He spent his younger years suffering from IBS and states that his experience as a patient allowed him to see the dysfunctional parts of the medical system. Patient care is “why we’re doing this.” Martinez confirms. He is “not just some guy in a white coat.” This isn’t the case “where the patient is the other. It’s us.” Alex Martinez and his team at Intrinsic Medicine “want to empower people. We believe human biology has the solution” because at heart they are “not a pharmaceutical company. We are a patient solution company.”
Stay up to date and learn more about the groundbreaking research Alex Martinez and the Intrinsic Medicine team are doing at intrinsicmedicine.com.
References:
2’-FL: Boosting Gut Health with Human Milk Oligosaccharides
What are 3’-Sialyllactose (3’SL) and 6’-Sialyllactose (6’SL)? – Layer Origin Nutrition
Oligosaccharides: Foods List, Benefits, and More
What are Cytokines? Types & Function
Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors – NCI