Coagulant Therapeutics Announces Publication in Blood Advances Describing Novel Nanobody Library to Activated Protein C and Initial Leads for Treatment of Trauma and Hemophilia

From the press release.

Coagulant Therapeutics Corporation, a privately held company focused on the design, development and commercialization of therapeutics targeted to the coagulation cascade and its adjacencies, announced the online publication of a manuscript titled “Selective Modulation of Activated Protein C Activities by a Non-Active Site Targeting Nanobody Library” in the journal Blood Advances, a Journal of the American Society of Hematology.

Activated Protein C (APC) has a role in regulating coagulation, inflammation, and cell survival, and thus is important for maintaining the homeostatic balance during health and disease. Developing APC-based therapeutics that selectively eliminate or retain these functions individually, or in combination, has been challenging. Leveraging the unique properties of llama antibodies (referred to as nanobodies) the manuscript describes the generation of a novel nanobody library to APC. The manuscript goes on to demonstrate that by using assays specific for coagulation, inflammation and cell survival functions of APC, the investigators were able to identify an array of human APC specific antibodies able to retain or eliminate these functions. This represents a tool chest for APC targeted therapies that has already identified a lead candidate for the treatment of trauma and hemophilia.

“The ability of the Coagulant Therapeutics APC nanobody library to selectively change the activity profile of APC is quite amazing.” said Dr. Laurent Mosnier, Ph.D., Professor in Department of Molecular Medicine at the Scripps Research Institute, and senior author on the publication. “Not only were we able to select for the beneficial activities of APC while eliminating unwanted activities at the same time, but we were also able to improve the cytoprotective effects of APC to enhance the therapeutic properties of this blood coagulation enzyme that is implicated to play a role in many different diseases.”

The mechanism of action differs from Coagulant Therapeutics’ lead molecule, CT-001, an engineered highly potent, fast clearing FVIIa molecule being developed for the treatment of severe postpartum hemorrhage, the leading cause of maternal mortality globally. As a result, these differing approaches of targeting APC with a nanobody and utilizing a modified coagulation factor may prove to be complementary or even synergistic to one another in the clinic.

“Our novel nanobody library to the human APC protein offers potential treatments for acute bleeding conditions, such as trauma as well as indications beyond acute bleeding where APC play an important role, such as hemophilia and sepsis” said Terry Hermiston, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Coagulant Therapeutics. “APC associated diseases like trauma and sepsis are areas of significant unmet medical need and we view our library and lead molecules as exciting opportunities to explore novel therapies in this space.”