Kancera’s Unique Approach to COVID-19: Attack the Fractalkine System
Published: July 14, 2020
By Mark Terry
BioSpace
As one of the main features of COVID-19 infections is the cytokine storm, many biopharmaceutical corporations are testing drugs that the immune system has a hyperrespoponity to the disease. Fractalkine is the only known member of the CX3C family of chemokies. It is a related cytokine protein in many hyperinflamation spaces, including, potentially, COVID-19.
Biotechnology company Kancera AB, founded in Stockholm, Sweden, recently obtained approval from the Swedish Medical Products Agency to launch a clinical trial on KAND567, which blocks the Fractalkine receptor that plays a leading role in activating the body’s inflammatory process. Thomas Olin, CEO of Kancera, took the time to talk about corporate, Fracktalkine’s management and the upcoming clinical trial.
Kancera is located in Karolinska Science Park in Stockholm and its key has reveled in AstraZeneca, Pharmacia and the Karolinska Institute. Over the past five years, the company has focused on cancer and immunomodulation, Olin said, and its maximum complex projects are KAND567 and KAND145, aimed at attacking hyperinflation by blocking the Fractalkine system.
The fractalquine receptor is expressed in monocytes and macrophages, herbal killer cells (NK) and T cells.
“The fractalquin ligand is expressed in a membrane-related form in endothelial cells and a soluble form,” Olin said. “The shape of the membrane acts as an adhesion molecule and soluble as chemo-attractive. Together, this ligand/fractaline formula receptor regulates the charm and infiltration of immune cells into tissues, causing inflammation and repair.
Olin noted that historically, the idea that the fractalquin formula dealt primarily with the solution and repair of inflammation. But recent studies suggest that “the fractalkine formula causes chronic and acute inflammatory diseases in other people and, potentially, blocking the formula can lead to remission in difficult-to-treat autoimmune diseases.
Fractalquin formula has now been shown to cause hyperinflamation after acute tissue and severe viral infection.
The next Phase II clinical trial is expected to begin in the third quarter of this year with effects in the fourth quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021.
The trial will have 40 patients, partly treated with KAND5467 and the other with placebo. KAND567 is an oral medicine given consistently with the capsule twice daily for seven days. Tracking fitness checks will be carried out after the end and 90 days later.
Olin said that KAND567 has merit over some of the antibody approaches, as it is a small molecule, which can succeed in “damaged spaces characterized by flow and exposure that are less difficult to modulate in the short term, which may be the key to balancing processes that result in inflammation and repair.” Array»
The review followed the effects of the Phase Ib programme, which was carried out in Finland. In early March, the company presented positive knowledge of this trial in the form of intelligent tolerability and a favorable protection profile after intravenous treatment. The first paintings in KAND567 for acute myocardial infarction.
This knowledge showed the drug’s protection profile and also demonstrated that the drug activity would possibly minimize the infiltration of monocytes that carry the fractalquin receptor into the vascular system. And those higher degrees of fractalquine, Olin said, are markers of poor diagnosis. Circulating monocytes are the cause of this poor diagnosis, as they explain the upper grades of fractalquine receptors and are attracted to the inflammation regions caused by the release of CX3CL1, a soluble fractalquine ligand.
In non-COVID-19 patients at the clinic, higher degrees of fractal equine were observed in acute respiratory misery syndrome (SED) and sepsis.
Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the company in May concentrated its progression of KAND567 on infectious diseases. Part of this procedure was to reduce staff in their areas of preclinical studies, which would decrease the company’s account base across approximately 8 million Swedish kronor consistent with the year (just under $1 million). It also focuses on introducing KAND145, its candidate for preclinical medicine, into the clinic.
“In early May, we announced a patent application for KAND567 and KAND145 for the remedy and prevention of hyperinflamation in viral infections, and at a later time, we filed an application with the Swedish Medicines Agency to conduct a Phase II clinical examination documenting the potential protective effect of the kanD567 drug candidate in patients with COVID-19” Olin said in a statement past. “The exam is intended to be carried out in collaboration with Capio St. Gorans Hospitals and the Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab). By opening this new domain of use to fractalquine inhibitors, we hope to contribute to the remedy of serious viral infections caused by COVID-19 and other viruses that cause the same type of hyperinflamation.
The Phase II trial will take position at a clinical site, Capio St. Gorans Hospital and will be led by clinical researchers Mantas Okas and Mats Wistrand. The center had treated more than 4,000 COVID-19 patients by the end of May. Peter Brodin, with SciLifeLab and the Karolinska Institute, will conduct research on the genetic and immune profile of trial patients.
The concentrate will be in patients with COVID-19 with hypoxia who have not eliminated the initial infection and who are in the early stages of the inflammatory reaction within hypersensitivity or are at risk of appearing. They will be able to delineate this patient organization based on several factors, adding C-reactive protein (PCR) and oxygen saturation. Patients with an oxygen saturation of less than 94% or requiring one to six liters of additional oxygen according to the minute for oxygen saturation grades between 93% and 96% will be eligible for the trial.
KAND-567 was originally developed through AstraZeneca for sclerosis. Kancera picked it up while still in preclinical studies and planned it for indications of immuno-oncology. A trial with British clinical collaborators reported that fractalquine was concerned about hyperinflamation that occurs after a percutaneous coronary intervention, or coronary angioplasty after an attack on the center. This check is still on the table, but is expected to arrive in 2021.
In addition to the coronary study, Olin stated that the drugs had programs for “spinal cord injury: minimizing the death of neural cells in the acute wound phase and thus maintaining mobility” and “autoimmune diseases, for example, Cohn: Eisai has published knowledge appearing a complete remission in patients who are difficult to treat after an antibody remedy aimed at fractalquine”.
BioSpace Source:
https://www.biospace.com/article/kancera-s-unique-approach-to-covid-19-attack-the-fractalkine-system