Ther­apy of lung diseases

Together with part­ners in Munich and around the world, ISAR Bioscience is devel­op­ing novel ther­apies for the treat­ment of acute and chronic lung diseases.

ISAR Bioscience invest­ig­ates and devel­ops novel ther­apies for lung dis­eases. The primary focus is on pre­vent­ing long-term dam­age to the lungs. Pul­mon­ary fibrosis is par­tic­u­larly feared, as it can develop in the con­text of vari­ous lung diseases—both fol­low­ing infec­tions and in cases of autoim­mune dis­eases. Mac­ro­phages, also known as pha­go­cytes, play a spe­cial role in this pro­cess. These are spe­cial­ized immune cells that engulf and digest patho­gens and cel­lu­lar debris. They play an import­ant role in inflam­ma­tion and wound heal­ing. If they become over­activ­ated, this leads to excess­ive inflam­ma­tion and, in the long term, to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of con­nect­ive tissue.

Our col­lab­or­a­tion part­ner, Prof. Stefan Engel­hardt, was the first to dis­cover the role of cer­tain microR­NAs in the activ­a­tion of mac­ro­phages. Large amounts of cer­tain reg­u­lat­ory microR­NAs are found in activ­ated mac­ro­phages. Block­ing these microR­NAs can curb inflam­mat­ory pro­cesses. Small nuc­leic acids with tar­geted modi­fic­a­tions are taken up by mac­ro­phages, bind to the microR­NAs, and render them inef­fect­ive. Joint research on this topic was fun­ded by the Bav­arian Research Found­a­tion and the Fed­eral Min­istry of Research.

This col­lab­or­a­tion led to the spin-off com­pany rnat­ics, in which ISAR Bioscience holds shares. The com­pany is fur­ther devel­op­ing thera­peut­ics that tar­get dis­ease-caus­ing microR­NAs in mac­ro­phages. The most advanced can­did­ate is the inhal­able thera­peutic RCS-21, which is inten­ded to pre­vent severe cases of lung dis­ease. The data col­lec­ted in the labor­at­ory and the res­ults of the safety stud­ies coordin­ated by ISAR Bioscience were sub­mit­ted to the Fed­eral Insti­tute for Drugs and Med­ical Devices, which assessed them as suf­fi­cient pre­clin­ical “proof of concept” and author­ized the con­duct of an ini­tial clin­ical trial (Phase 1a/b). These clin­ical tri­als in healthy volun­teers are cur­rently underway.

In addi­tion, dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­demic, ISAR Bioscience—in col­lab­or­a­tion with teams from the Tech­nical Uni­ver­sity of Munich—developed par­tic­u­larly rapid meth­ods for the dia­gnosis of anti­bod­ies against SARS-CoV-2. Together with New York Uni­ver­sity, ISAR Bioscience has also inven­ted a tech­no­logy to block the rep­lic­a­tion of these vir­uses in the body. With the help of mRNA encap­su­lated in lipid nan­o­particles (LNPs), infec­ted cells can pro­duce a nanobody (a mini-anti­body) that stops viral replication.

Pat­ent

Per­cip­alle P, Esposito G, Holthoff HP, Des­bordes SC (2023)
Com­pos­i­tions that Block Activ­a­tion of the Sars-CoV-2 Rep­lic­a­tion and Tran­scrip­tion Com­plex (RTC)and Meth­ods of Use Thereof.
Pat­entan­mel­dung WO 2023-041985 A3

Pub­lic­a­tions on this topic

News on this topic