Stroke drug breakthrough at UBC
Primary Peptides’ technology has applications for other treatments
B.C. biotech Primary Peptides has signed a $40-million development agreement for a new stroke treatment with a Chinese pharmaceutical giant, but co-founder Max Cynader says it may be just the first of a dozen such agreements.
The new compound is intended to block the “toxic cascade” of reactions that lead to cell death in the hours immediately after a stroke and is the first candidate drug for commercialization produced by the fledgling firm.
Just 18 months after launching the company with Yu Tian Wang and William Jia — both fellow professors at the University of B.C. — Primary Peptides has a contractually guaranteed source of income in the form of progress payments from its deal with Beijing’s Yabao Pharmaceutical.
“With young companies, you are always hanging on by your fingernails, but this is a pretty special moment for us,” said Cynader, who recently retired from his administrative duties as director of the Brain Research Centre to join Primary Peptides and another startup, Wavemakers Research.
But the company principals won’t be sitting on their hands. The technologies they have created to produce their stroke medication can be equally useful in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, heart attacks, obesity and a variety of cancers, according to Cynader.
Primary Peptides can design peptides that target proteins that are “bad actors” in disease, find them inside the body’s cells and mark them for destruction by the cell’s own disposal system.
“If we can identify a protein that is present in a high (damaging) concentration in the brain, or anywhere for that matter, we can drag that protein to the garbage can of the cell,” said Cynader. “That’s a very powerful and general technology.”
It is particularly useful that Primary Peptides’ candidate drugs are able to penetrate to the locations where they can do the most good, including inside the cells and the brain, which is protected by a highly selective membrane structure. “We have a secret weapon that allows our peptide to cross the blood-brain barrier, to cross into cells and grab that protein,” he said.
The same approach to custom-engineered peptides can be used to seek out certain proteins and stop them from “kissing,” to head off destructive interactions.
“In strokes, we’ve discovered a protein-protein interaction that is a key part of a toxic cascade that damages cells and figured out how to block that,” he said.
The agreement between Yabao and Primary Peptides will cover all the expenses for Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials to prove the safety and the efficacy of the drug. At that point, a third partner — one with very deep pockets — may be required to help carry out Phase 3 trials to U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards for commercialization.
“That could cost $200 million, or as much as $300 million,” said Cynader. “It’s a lot of money.”
Until recently, Primary Peptides has financed its research with the founders’ personal funds, money from relatives, and grants from public and private technology development foundations.
At the end of the current deal, Yabao will hold exclusive rights to sell the drug in China, while both firms share rights to the rest of the world. However, a new deal that includes a third partner could change that dynamic.
By partnering with large pharmaceutical firms to move each of their drugs through commercialization and provide steady cash flow, the company is able to focus on what it does best, find new candidate drugs with clinical potential, Cynader said.
“Yabao is our first deal, but we are already talking to a bunch of other companies about other drugs for prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer and a heart attack drug,” he said. “The technology has matured to the point where there is a lot of opportunity for us now.”
The patents for the technologies created by Cynader, Wang and Jia are held by UBC, which receives royalties and owns shares in Primary Peptides.