WntResearch submits patent application for novel methods of measuring biological effects of the company’s drug candidate Foxy-5
WntResearch has applied for a patent on two novel methods to measure biological effects in humans of the company’s Wnt-5a-agonist drug candidate Foxy-5. These method also have the potential to detect the effects of the company’s second drug candidate Box-5, a Wnt-5a-antagonist. The methods facilitate the drug candidates’ development and will be used for the evaluation of the company’s drug candidate Foxy-5 in current and future clinical studies, which is deemed to be of great importance for the future development of this potential treatment for metastasization of tumours.
Professor Tommy Andersson’s research group at Lund University has under a long time focused on the protein Wnt-5a and its significance in metastasization of prostate-, colon- breast- and skin cancer. A result of this research is the identification of two peptides that function as either a Wnt-5a agonist (Foxy-5) or a Wnt-5a-antagonist (Box-5). WntResearch currently hold the patents for these two peptides and have under several years of intensive work continued with bringing the drug candidates Foxy-5 and Box-5 to the clinical development phase. Foxy-5 is the substance that has advanced furthest in this process and a clinical phase 1b-study is currently ongoing, whilst Box-5 remains in preclinical phase.
Foxy-5 has shown a near total lack of toxicity in both preclinical and clinical studies, and WntResearch has therefore been in great need of a method that could confirm whether the concentrations of Foxy-5 that is currently studied results in biological activity.
The aforementioned patent application is of importance to WntResearch and its future drug development of Foxy-5 and Box-5. Data from the performed preclinical and clinical studies have both laid the foundation for the two methods covered by the patent application, and one of the methods shows that WntResearch can measure the biological effects of Foxy-5 in the currently studied dose range.
WntResearch expects that the measuring methods covered in the patent application will facilitate the selection of an adequate dose of Foxy-5 in future clinical studies.