Drug Development Programs
Ångstrom Has a Promising Drug Candidate, Å6, in Advanced Product Development
Å6 is in clinical development for ovarian cancer and in preclinical development for the treatment of diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration. Å6 binds to the cell surface receptor CD44 and inhibits cancer cell migration. The IC50 for Å6 inhibition of chemotaxis in several human cancer cell lines is in the nM-pM range indicating a physiologically relevant mechanism. Furthermore the inhibition of cancer cell migration persists for 18-20 hours following the removal of Å6. Å6 is stable in phosphate buffer for more than 5 years when stored 2-8°C. Å6 has been shown to have no dose-limiting toxicity in animal studies and consistently demonstrates an excellent safety profile across animal studies and human trials. The Company has recently completed a placebo-controlled Phase 2 clinical trial evaluating Å6 in women with biochemical recurrent ovarian cancer. In this study, the time to tumor progression was doubled in patients receiving Å6 over that of placebo control (p<0.01). A second Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with persistent or recurrent ovarian cancer is in progress. This trial is being conducted by the Gynecological Oncology Group (NCI) and the translational research component of this study will assess CD44 as a biomarker.
ARMD Program
Å6 has also been shown to significantly reduce neovascular lesions in animal models. In addition to pursuing the use of Å6 for cancer, the Company is also investigating pre-clinical development of compounds for the intraocular treatment of ARMD.