Finally, a Drug Company Listens to People with Hearing Loss

In a day and age when it feels like there are drugs for everything—from restless legs to toenail fungus to stage fright—it's strange the drug industry has almost completely ignored one of our most important organs: our ears. Given that 15 percent of people in the U.S. report at least some level of hearing loss, you’d think drug makers would be doing more to figure out how they can help. Well, now there’s at least one company that is. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Decibel Therapeutics went public in 2021 to help raise money to fund its research on ways to treat a specific form of deafness caused by a rare genetic mutation. Decibel is testing a gene therapy that would be administered only to cells in the inner ear and would provide patients with a correct, working copy of the otoferlin gene, which is inactive in about 10 percent of kids born with auditory neuropathy. Harry's guest this week is Decibel’s CEO Laurence Reid, who explains how the company’s research is going, and how Decibel hopes to make up for all those decades when the pharmaceutical business had basically zero help to offer for people with hearing loss.

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Transcript

Harry Glorikian: Hello. I’m Harry Glorikian, and this is The Harry Glorikian Show, where we explore how technology is changing everything we know about healthcare.

These days, it feels like there’s a medicine for almost everything.

There are drugs to calm your restless legs. There are drugs to treat fungal infections under your toenails or fingernails. There are even drugs to calm down performers who suffer from stage fright.

So it feels odd that the drug industry has almost completely ignored one of our most important organs: our ears.

15 percent of people in the U.S. report at least some level of hearing loss, so you’d think drug makers would be doing more to figure out how they can help.

Well, now there’s at least one company that is.

It’s a six-year-old company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts called Decibel Therapeutics.

Decibel went public in 2021 to help raise money to fund its research on ways to treat a specific form of deafness caused by a rare genetic mutation.

It turns out that in about 10 percent of children who are born with auditory neuropathy, the problem is a mutation in the gene for a protein called otoferlin.

It’s involved in the formation of tiny bubbles or vesicles that carry neurotransmitters across the synapses between the inner hair cells that pick up sound and auditory neurons in the brain.

Decibel is testing a gene therapy that would be administered only to cells in the inner ear and would provide patients with a correct, working copy of the otoferlin gene.

Otoferlin wasn’t even discovered until 1999. So the fact that there’s a drug company working to correct mutations in the gene for the protein is a great example of how genomics is enabling big advances in medicine.

My guest today is Decibel’s CEO Laurence Reid.

And in our conversation he explained how the company’s work is coming along, and how Decibel hopes to make up for all those decades when the pharmaceutical business had basically zero help to offer for people with hearing loss.

Harry Glorikian: Laurence, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here.

Laurence Reid: Yeah. Hey, good morning, Harry. Great to see you again. Thank you. Thanks very much for the opportunity to join you. I'm looking forward to it.

Harry Glorikian: Yeah,...