The LABINA trial for wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration

11/12/2019

As we approach the end of 2019 it’s time for a quick update. Over the last few months the focus has been on MagaFab and, as we hinted at in the last post, getting some critical safety data on this molecule. The very good news is that a few weeks ago we undertook these studies and MagaFab passed with flying colours. This of course is also great news for our spinout company PanAngium, and provides the ammunition we need to get funding into the company to now scale up MagaFab manufacture and take the work towards clinical trials.

We therefore end the year on a positive note, knowing that the prospect of getting our novel therapy into patients is a step closer. As soon as we have more news you’ll be able to read about it here, but for now have a peaceful and enjoyable Christmas.

03/05/2019

What better time to write an update than while waiting for our flight back to London from the wonderful city of Vancouver. We’ve just spent a week here enjoying the annual ARVO conference, a gathering of some 12000 scientists and clinicians sharing the latest research findings and ideas regarding all areas of vision loss and blindness.

For us it was the first chance to to share our new exciting news, which is that a few weeks ago we finally formed a spin out company called PanAngium Therapeutics, with funding to develop MagaFab (see previous post for more info about MagaFab) through the next stages towards clinical trials.

Our other news is that we recently secured funding from Diabetes UK to perform more basic research on the mechanisms leading to retinal vascular disease in diabetes. Where this seems to be taking us, is towards our first clinical trials being performed in patients with wet AMD (as we’d always intended) and also diabetic eye disease.

All of which means lots of work and much to think about as we fly home from this beautiful part of British Columbia.

14/02/2019

An update here is long overdue, but there are good reasons for the silence of the past few months. Preparation for clinical trials always involves rigorous safety testing, and by the middle of last year our antibody Magacizumab was well on track to meet the demands of the regulatory authorities (FDA in the US, MHRA in the UK). Without their approval it is simply not possible to start injecting drugs into patients, and to our frustration Magacizumab was found wanting in one key area.

But this is not the end of the story. Antibodies are big molecules, and its possible to break them down and just use one bit. Any patients with wet AMD who have heard of Avastin and Lucentis, may know that Lucentis is a fragment of Avastin. So to cut a long story short, we've been working on ways to generate our own Magacizumab fragment and have succeeded - we call it MagaFab - and over the last few months have obtained funding to develop MagaFab and repeat the safety testing.

The net result is a delay to getting this to the clinic, but we're back on track and moving forward. And as a footnote, Magacizumab may still have an exciting future in diseases away from the eye. More on this next time!

18/09/2018

These last few months have presented us with an unexpected challenge, and the pause since our last post reflects the thinking and new planning we've had to come up with to keep things moving forward. To cut a long story short, we've discovered that Magacizumab (our therapeutic antibody) may need to undergo some modifications before it can be used in patients.

In the ten years or so that we've been working on this project this is the first time we've really had to divert from the planned route, but perhaps it's inevitable that in the long and complex process of going from a lab discovery to treating people with AMD, we were bound to hit a bump in the road at some point.

So, whilst the LABINA trial remains in our sights, we've been working to generate extra funding to support some additional development work, and also accept that this will delay the commencement of clinical trials. Meanwhile, we continue to study our protein of interest (LRG1) in the lab, and our wonderful hard-working research team keep generating results that convince us we're on the right track.

27/04/2018

Eight days after returning from Chicago and we're off again. And this time it's to the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). Like most big scientific societies, ARVO hold their annual conference in cities across the US, and notably next year for the first time, outside the US - although only just, when they go to Vancouver. But this year the meeting is in Hawaii. We almost didn't go, because of the sheer distance involved, but with the project at such an exciting stage and various collaborators and companies to talk to, it was clear we needed to attend.

The big news in our project is that the company making Magacizumab, our therapeutic antibody, have succeeded in generating large quantities of extraordinarily pure material at high concentration. Both of these points are important, the former because the eye is incredibly sensitive to certain impurities called endotoxins, and the second because a high concentration means not having to inject people so frequently. We'll be updating scientific colleagues at ARVO on our progress, while also learning about what other groups are up to, and all the latest news on emerging therapies for AMD. If you're interested in knowing more about the conference then follow the ARVO page at https://www.facebook.com/ARVOinfo/

The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) is an international eye and vision research organization with more than 11,000 members worldwide.

16/04/2018

So here we are in Chicago sharing some of our work with around 20,000 cancer scientists and clinicians. Attending conferences like this is an essential and mostly enjoyable part of the job, but there are times, like this morning when it's -2oC here and snowing, that I look at the decidedly warmer conditions back home and wonder what on earth possessed me to come.🤔

25/03/2018

In a few weeks we're off to another conference, this time in Chicago, and it's all to do with cancer. Many of you will know that the monthly injections you receive, be it Eylea, Lucentis, Avastin etc., work by stopping the blood vessels leaking in the retina, hence the swelling subsides and vision improves. What's interesting from a historical perspective, is that these drugs have their origins in cancer. And the key biological link between wet AMD and many different types of solid cancer, is abnormal blood vessel growth. Avastin was initially developed for colorectal cancer (where it is still widely used), until some years ago a bright spark working in a lab somewhere had the idea that perhaps Avastin might also be effective in wet AMD. The rest, as they say, is history.

In our project, we've done the reverse. We started by developing our antibody, Magacizumab, to treat diseases of retina and in particular wet AMD (this work is funded by the Medical Research Council), but a few years ago we began to wonder whether the antibody might work in other conditions that feature abnormal blood vessels. So we began investigating cancer. For now, all we can say is that we have some interesting data that we're planning to publish this year, and that if we're ever going to start testing Magacizumab in cancer, it's become important for us to learn more about this vast and complex family of diseases.

29/12/2017

Another update! Everything is on course as the company we have contracted to provide the drug has now completed the manufacture process and generated the first batch of Magacizumab. In January 2018 this will go to another specialist company to check its safety. When this is complete later next year we will begin the lengthy regulatory process and manufacture the clinical grade batch of Magacizumab in readiness for our clinical trial in 2019. Its a slow process but we are making progress and getting ever closer to the clinical trial. Further updates will come during 2018. Have a wonderful New Year from all of us involved in this project.