The Food Allergy Science Initiative (FASI) marked its 10th anniversary by launching the Food Allergy Medicines Accelerator (FAMA), a new multi-million-dollar philanthropic initiative to accelerate the translation of a decade of scientific discoveries into transformative medicines for the millions of people globally living with food allergies.

Over the past decade, FASI has united more than 100 scientists, working across disciplines at the intersection of immunology, neuroscience, gastroenterology, microbiology, and computational biology in more than 20 world-class laboratories at Yale School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Mass General Brigham, the Broad Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital, and other academic medical centers and research centers. Since its founding, FASI has deployed more than $50 million in research funding across 126 projects. Taken together, this body of work has fundamentally changed how food allergy is understood, reframing it as a whole-body, systems-level disease involving interactions among the immune system, nervous system, barrier tissues, and other biological pathways.

Food Allergy Medicines Accelerator

FAMA is designed to move promising food allergy science toward the development of new medicines by bringing together three complementary strengths:

  • Leading academic research

  • Experienced drug development expertise within FASI and its advisory network

  • Industry collaborators who can help advance discoveries toward clinical application

The accelerator supports translational projects emerging from investigators across the FASI research network, including researchers at Yale, Harvard, and Harvard-affiliated institutions.

FAMA’s initial $10 million investment supports four early drug discovery programs spanning multiple therapeutic approaches. This pipeline is focused on answering the critical questions required to determine whether a promising scientific discovery can be translated into a viable therapeutic program—for example, validating potential drug targets, assessing whether they can be effectively modulated, and developing the assays and tools needed to identify and evaluate potential therapeutic candidates. Programs that demonstrate sufficient promise can then advance into subsequent stages of development. Additional funding would support the work required to reduce technical and translational risk and move programs toward a development-ready clinical candidate.

Ultimately, successful programs would be positioned to transition beyond FAMA and into clinical development, either through the formation of new biotechnology companies or in partnership with an established industry organization.

“A decade ago, a food allergy diagnosis meant a lifetime of avoidance and fear of the next reaction. Today, we understand the biology of this disease at a level that once seemed out of reach and that progress has created an opportunity to change what comes next,” said Dr. Carlos Bosques, chief executive officer of FASI. “The Food Allergy Medicines Accelerator is designed to build on that foundation by moving the most promising FASI discoveries toward new therapeutic opportunities. We look forward to partnering with biopharma to translate these insights into medicines that can make a meaningful difference for patients.”

FASI Principal Investigators will continue to collaborate with FASI’s internal scientific team to move promising academic discoveries toward therapeutic development.

FAMA brings experienced industry drug developers, dedicated infrastructure, and external partners into that process, allowing programs to be advanced with the rigor and discipline of a biotechnology drug discovery organization. Its portfolio spans the early development continuum, from validating new therapeutic targets to identifying and optimizing potential drug candidates.

10 Years of Scientific Advances

FASI helped transform the field by establishing that food allergy is a systems-level disorder involving immune, nervous, barrier, and behavioral biology, including that the:

  • Immune system communicates directly with the brain to drive avoidance behavior

  • Skin barrier damage can trigger food allergy sensitization elsewhere in the body

  • Specialized neurons and antibodies can both escalate or calm allergic reactions 

“Philanthropy is what changes the pace of progress in a field like this,” said Dr. Christine Olsen, co-founder and executive chair of the FASI board of directors. “It advances discovery to the point where a biotech or pharmaceutical partner can see its potential for possible partnership. Alongside our continued commitment to foundational research, the Food Allergy Medicines Accelerator will extend our efforts in the direction of the clinic, and toward help for families who are counting on us to unlock treatments and cures.”

About FASI

The Food Allergy Science Initiative (FASI) is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization founded in 2016 at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. FASI unites more than 100 scientists across more than 20 world-class laboratories working at the intersection of immunology, neuroscience, gastroenterology, microbiology, and computational biology, the first organization to bring these disciplines together under a single mission: to accelerate the development of breakthrough discoveries that will transform the lives of people living with food allergies. To date, FASI has funded more than $50 million in research across 126 grants at leading institutions. Learn more at foodallergyscience.org.

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