Associate Professor Michael Foley, founding Chief Scientific Officer of emerging drug developer AdAlta Limited, will be in the USA later this month to present at the novel drug conference Discovery on Target (25-28 Sept). A copy of his presentation can be accessed here.
At Discovery on Target, Dr Foley will highlight the potential of i-body therapeutics to more efficiently and effectively target GPCRs than the traditional small molecule drug approach. Dr Foley will also explore the i-body’s potential for ‘biased’ signalling, a highly selective way to modulate cell function that could be the next major advancement in drug development.
Dr Foley explained: “About 40% of the drugs on the market today target GPCRs, but almost all of them are small molecules, which tend not to be target-specific and therefore have many undesirable side effects.
“Antibodies tend to be more target-specific and have fewer side effects, however traditional human antibodies are very big and their shape prevents them from accessing targets like GPCRs.
“The i-body, with its long loop, can effectively access GPCRs with few, if any, side effects.
“AdAlta has a library of over 20 billion i-bodies with different functional profiles, which can be screened against GPCRs as a starting point for developing therapies to treated a wide range of diseases currently considered therapeutically challenging.”
AdAlta is developing its lead i-body therapeutic, AD-214, to treat fibrotic conditions, with a particular focus on Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). In preclinical and laboratory studies, AdAlta’s lead i-body has demonstrated selective binding to its target, CXCR4, a protein expressed at higher levels in patients with lung fibrosis, and blocked the migration of cells implicated in fibrosis without influencing or impacting healthy cells.
“Unlike existing treatments for IPF, which have an unknown or very broad mode of action, the mechanism of action AD-214 is exquisitely specific and well understood,” Dr Foley said. “AD-214 could potentially bring the progression of the disease to a grinding halt.”
Associate Professor Michael Foley will present at the Discovery on Target Conference Wednesday 26th September at 2:25pM EDT and a copy of his presentation can be viewed here.