By Roxana Grunenwald ‘25

On June 18, 2024, over a dozen summer interns from Connecticut’s life sciences organizations, including Yale, gathered at the Arvinas, Inc., headquarters in New Haven. The tour was organized by Lifescience Sprints, a program that supports paid internships in the life-science industry for undergraduate and graduate students attending Connecticut colleges and universities.  Yale Ventures Summer Associates Nursen Ogutveren, Oluwafemi Ayangbayi, and Roxana Grunenwald joined interns from community partners supporting biotech and health innovations including Alexion, Biohaven, BioCT, Boehringer Ingelheim, Connecticut Innovations, EvolveImmune Therapeutics, and RallyBio.  

Founded in 2013 by Yale Professor Craig Crews, PhD, Arvinas utilizes ground-breaking PROTAC protein degradation technology to bring to market life-saving drugs. “PROTAC” stands for “PRoteolysis-TArgeting Chimera,” whereby a given protein binds to a cancerous one, tags it as cancerous, and degrades the malignant protein with a proteosome. Arvinas’ innovative technology lies in creating these binds; the PROTAC is able to bind to and degrade large and previously “undruggable” proteins to make new therapeutics widely available.

Arvinas was founded by Yale’s Craig Crews. The connection to Yale and New Haven location provides advantages such as access to academic expertise, collaborative opportunities, and support for a vibrant biotech ecosystem. Arvinas is revolutionizing how diseases are treated by directly addressing the root cause at the protein level, making us a significant player in the industry's efforts to develop more effective and precise therapies. We are pushing boundaries and leading innovation of drug discovery through our PROTAC® protein degraders for targeted protein degradation (TPD) – and we were the first company to use this technology. Arvinas is applying PROTAC® protein degraders across a wide range of therapeutic areas, including but not limited to oncology and neuroscience, and has built a robust pipeline of drug candidates to hopefully help patients in the clinic.

The Tour

Gathered in a conference room, we heard from representatives from the company’s oncology and neurology units to learn about the history of Arvinas and the biochemical principles that drive the company’s industry-leading solutions. After the presentation, the group of interns split into two groups; one that remained in the conference room and interacted with the panel of scientists while the other toured the laboratory facilities and viewed various live demonstrations.

In the oncology unit of the lab tour, we saw a demonstration of X-ray crystallography imaging to view molecular structure and the application of mass spectrometry as a quality-control instrument to ensure the protein degradation process has successfully targeted and eliminated the cancerous protein.  

In the neurology unit, we viewed stem cells and cultured neurons. In 2018, Arvinas created the first blood-brain barrier-crossing PROTAC protein degrader and is actively working to create the first clinical solutions to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s diseases. PROTAC protein degraders specific to neurodegenerative diseases are in the early stages of clinical trials today. 

Arvinas, Inc., went public in 2018. In 2021, the company partnered with Pfizer to become the world’s first company to bring PROTAC drugs to market to treat breast cancer. Earlier this year in April, Arvinas announced a large licensing agreement with international pharmaceutical company Novartis AG to further develop its second-generation prostate cancer drug.  

A Connecticut Innovations portfolio company based in New Haven, Yale Ventures is proud to support ground-breaking scientific innovation where Yale research can be commercialized to save countless lives across the world.

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