Angiex is developing first-in-class Nuclear-Delivered Antibody-Drug Conjugates™ (ND-ADCs) to address the hallmarks of cancer lethality and deliver safe and effective cancer therapies to all.
Cancers are distinguished from normal tissue by a number of hallmarks. Many of these hallmarks are shared by both benign and malignant tumors, but some are found only in malignant cancers capable of killing. Three hallmarks below all contribute to cancer lethality:
Suppression of Immune Defense
Cancers hide from the immune system, posing as healing wounds. Like the Devil, cancer’s greatest trick is pretending it doesn’t exist.
Angiogenesis
Tumors stimulate the growth of new blood vessels, enabling them to grow without limit.
Invasion and Metastasis
Malignant cancer cells invade and disrupt normal tissue, and generate new tumors throughout the body. This process accounts for up to 90% of cancer deaths.
Angiex founders discovered the special biology of the intracellular transporter TM4SF1.
TM4SF1 is normally specific to endothelial cells (the cells lining the walls of blood vessels) where it enables new blood vessels to grow. But TM4SF1 is commonly turned on by malignant cancer cells because it enables them to invade and metastasize.
TM4SF1 is widely and highly expressed in the tumor cells of most solid cancers and in the endothelial cells of angiogenic tumor blood vessels. Drugs directed to TM4SF1 can therefore attack both Angiogenesis and Invasion and Metastasis. Moreover, because the endothelium controls immune cell trafficking into tumors, TM4SF1-directed drugs can potentially overcome cancer’s Suppression of Immune Defense.
Angiex drugs have three Mechanisms of Action (MoAs):
Angiex drugs benefit from TM4SF1’s role as a transporter of proteins from cell surface to nucleus. Angiex drugs hitchhike along this route, carrying conjugated drug payloads into the nucleus of cells in the tumor. The nucleus is the most sensitive and protected cellular compartment and a highly favorable location of drug delivery.
All three MoAs have potential to bring transformative outcomes to cancer patients. For example, TM4SF1 is broadly and highly expressed across nearly all solid cancers, so that the tumor cell MoA – the primary source of efficacy for other ADCs – has potential to work in more cancer patients than are served by other ADCs:
Data source: DepMap Expression data 24Q2 for TM4SF1 vs other targets. See https://depmap.org/portal.
Citation: Tsherniak A, Vazquez F, Montgomery PG, Weir BA, Kryukov G, Cowley GS, Gill S, Harrington WF, Pantel S, Krill-Burger JM, Meyers RM, Ali L, Goodale A, Lee Y, Jiang G, Hsiao J, Gerath WFJ, Howell S, Merkel E, Ghandi M, Garraway LA, Root DE, Golub TR, Boehm JS, Hahn WC. Defining a Cancer Dependency Map. Cell. 2017 Jul 27;170(3):564-576.
Angiex’s mission is to make cancer a non-lethal disease, by exploiting the biology of TM4SF1 to make new drugs– Nuclear-Delivered Antibody-Drug Conjugates™ (ND-ADCs) – that will
(1) activate immunity against cancers, (2) destroy tumor vessels, reducing tumors to minimal size, and
(3) kill malignant tumor cells, eliminating the ability of cancers to invade or metastasize.
Angiex believes that no one should die of cancer. Angiex’s three-fold attack upon the hallmarks that make cancers lethal may make that vision a reality.
Angiex is an ambitious startup looking for the highest quality partners. If you can help, please contact us...
