This week, we have a conversation with Philip Brainin, CEO of Isomab, about restoring blood flow to the heart, and with RougeTx CEO Andrew Lightfoot, about taking on hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT).
Times:
03:34 Isomab
25:29 RougeTx
Isomab
Isomab, a preclinical UK biotech, recently presented safety data at ESC recently that may not sound particularly exciting at first glance, but the implications for cardiovascular drug development could be significant.
For decades, the field has been trying to stimulate new blood vessel growth to restore blood flow to the heart, but concerns that this could increase the risk of cancer or damage to the retina have been a major barrier.
Isomab’s systematic review of more than 20 years of clinical trial data found no evidence of these long-held safety concerns, potentially removing a significant obstacle to developing an entirely new class of disease-modifying cardiovascular therapies.
Isomab believes its approach could open up a new avenue for treating coronary artery disease. The company has a lead drug candidate in ISM-001, which selectively removes VEGF-A165b to restore the natural signalling balance that enables healthy vascularisation in the heart. VEGF-A165b was first identified in 2001 by David Bates, scientific founder of Isomab, and has since been validated in more than 100 publications from more than 80 independent laboratories worldwide.
RougeTx
RougeTx, launched recently with a $58m Series A financing to advance first-in-class therapies designed to restore vascular integrity by targeting pericyte dysfunction.
RougeTx is developing novel therapies for diseases driven by vascular instability, with lead programme RTX-001 advancing towards first-in-human clinical development for hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT), a serious inherited bleeding disorder for which there are currently no approved therapies.
RougeTx’s periSCOPE platform is being used to identify additional opportunities across diseases associated with vascular instability. The company is built on more than two decades of research into the role of pericytes in maintaining blood vessel integrity.
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