On March 16, doctors at the Massachusetts General Hospital made history when they successfully transplanted a kidney from a genetically modified pig to a living human. The groundbreaking procedure marked a significant milestone in animal-to-human transplant, or xenotransplantation, which might one day help alleviate critical shortages of human donor organs.

The surgery was also a major step forward for David-Alexandre Gros, M.D. (MBA 2002) and his company, Eledon Pharmaceuticals, whose investigational immunosuppressant drug, tegoprubart, is a key component of the patient’s treatment regimen. A monoclonal antibody, tegoprubart works by minimizing activation of the immune system so it can’t mount an attack on the new organ. In clinical trials, the drug has been shown to be well-tolerated, with fewer of the serious side effects often associated with older transplant drugs. Tegoprubart was first discovered at the ALS Therapy Development Institute and in part funded by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The drug shows promise as a treatment for neurological diseases like ALS in addition to organ transplant. Researchers at the Irvine, California-based Eledon previously completed a clinical trial in ALS as well.

We recently spoke with Dr. Gros, Eledon’s founder and CEO, about tegoprubart’s potential to revolutionize transplant medicine, why he left medicine to become a serial health care entrepreneur, and what drives his passion to find better therapies for Eledon’s patient communities.

How did Eledon get involved with the transplant case at MGH?
We have multiple trials going on around the world, including at MGH. We have the most advanced novel drug in clinical development for transplant rejection today. Our vision is for tegoprubart to become the cornerstone immunosuppressant for any type of transplant—liver, lung, heart, kidney—regardless of where that organ came from, whether a living donor, a deceased donor, or in this case, a pig.

How might this drug revolutionize transplant medicine?
Traditional immunosuppressants wipe out populations of white blood cells, so there will not be enough to attack the new organ. With tegoprubart, we interfere with how white blood cells communicate with each other, making it harder for them to mount an attack. We’re not destroying them; it’s a very targeted mechanism. We’re looking to replace the current cornerstone drug, tacrolimus, which is toxic to the kidneys and causes diabetes and hypertension—the two most common reasons people need kidney transplants, ironically. Our drug was specifically designed not to have these side effects.

Today in the US, we don’t have enough organs and the organs we do have don’t last long enough. With kidneys, for every five people that receive a transplant in the United States every year, one person dies waiting for one. We’re working on two solutions. First, we need to get better drugs that allow organs to function longer, and second, we need new sources of organs. We can get organs from animals, primarily pigs. Unfortunately, the current standard of care immunosuppressants are not effective enough to protect those pig organs. We’ve demonstrated that our drug can protect human-to-human kidney transplants, and we’re beginning to show that it can protect pig-to-human transplants from rejection as well.

What was your immediate reaction after the surgery at MGH?
It was exhilarating! Each one of these procedures is teaching us an incredible amount about xenotransplantation, on top of being able to help these individuals live longer.

You went to medical school at Johns Hopkins, then to Harvard for your MBA. Was biotech always in your career plan?
In college, I set up an ambulance service in Saint Lucia. Then, during medical school, I started an organization that recycled medical equipment and donated it to the developing world. By the time I graduated, we had 70 volunteers and were shipping tons of equipment every year. I completed a year of residency afterwards, but I realized that what excited me the most about medicine was not direct patient care, but the potential to run medically associated organizations. That’s when I went to HBS. From there, I worked at McKinsey in health care consulting, and then I was an investment banker with Merrill Lynch and Centerview Partners. I then joined the executive team at Sanofi where I was Chief Strategy Officer, and then moved to Neurocrine, a mid-cap biotech, where I was President and Chief Operating Officer and got to launch my first drug commercially. Over the past years, however, I’ve played a role in starting four companies, where three were taken public and one was sold. As such, I’ve gone from very big to very small and I feel extremely blessed, from a career perspective.

How does your Harvard MBA inform your work today?
HBS set me on this path. As an entrepreneur and CEO, I’ve had to wear many hats. The ability to work on a wide range of topics, whether it’s finance or human resources, definitely goes back to the way we were taught at business school. I still have a lot of friends from HBS, too, so it continues to play a big role in my life.

What’s driving you in this work, and what are you looking forward to?
What’s driven me over the last 30 years is a continued desire to serve. I was called to medicine as a teen and at my core, it’s behind everything I do professionally. With Eledon, I feel a tremendous obligation to the patient communities that we serve. I look forward to hopefully getting this drug approved for all of them.

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