The Company is an Israeli biotechnology company that is focused on a novel drug discovery and development platform based on Signal Peptides (“SPs”) which the company deploys to fight infectious diseases and cancer.
Our most advanced product, ImMucin™ a MUC1 SP-derived vaccine, completed a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in multiple myeloma and received orphan drug status from the FDA and EMA. The Company has also, a SP-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate and a SP-based tuberculosis vaccine / treatment candidate. In addition, The Company has mAb candidates for the treatment of oncology and infectious diseases to be used alone, and in combination with other treatments. The Company has also initiated a pre-clinical program for a drug delivery polymer that targets with high affinity E-selectin (P-Esbp), which The Company licensed for development and commercialization from BGN Technologies, the technology transfer company of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
The Company exploits the unique properties of SP domains on crucial proteins to develop targeted therapies against cancer targets and infectious disease pathogens. VaxHit™, The Company’s proprietary bioinformatic approach, mines candidate SPs with predicted high immunogenicity and wide coverage over varied HLA subtypes. The SPs induce a robust T- and B-cell response. Under normal conditions SPs are not presented on the cell surface, thus acting as a neoantigen in tumor cells. Since these neoantigens are not a result of a mutation, but are naturally occurring sequences, these sequences will be identical among most patients providing a unique class of therapeutics –universal neoantigens. The peptide platform targets affected cells, either transformed (i.e., cancer) or infected, by “educating” or specifically activating the immune system to recognize and specifically attack these cells, and only these cells. In addition, The Company’s mAb platform directly recognizes the target epitopes presented on malignant cells and recruits other elements of the immune system to kill those cells.
The Company’s SP-based technology provides unique advantages due to the use of SPs as the basis for a prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine. Those advantages include:
- Induction of a complete adaptive immune response – cellular (T cells) and humoral (antibodies).
- Stimulation of a robust immune response elicited by multiple antigens within the SP.
- Wide coverage of diverse populations due to epitopes spanning varied class I and class II HLAs.
- Increased immune efficiency due to circumventing the viral and tumor immune evasions, such as TAP insufficiency and HLA downregulation.
- Improved safety profile by specifically and only targeting affected cells.
- Potential prevention of infectious disease resurgence and a novel universal class of neoantigen in oncology.
- Greater susceptibility to adaptive immunity by targeting infected cells rather than the pathogen.
Tuberculosis (TB)
The Company’s platform has potential as a treatment for various infectious diseases, including TB. Preclinical studies have confirmed the efficacy of SPs in reducing bacterial load in the lungs in a murine protection model. Further studies will evaluate tuberculosis SPs as a boost to standard of care, in order to (1) increase treatment efficacy, (2) prolong the protective immunity effect and/or (3) expand the treated population. Any further development of any potential treatment for TB is dependent on additional financing.