PIKAMAB has secured exclusive rights to two issued US patents from Hospital for Special Surgery, New York. Reportedly, PIKAMAB is developing Lupus Therasight, a theragnostic product that will eventually help guide the drug development process and patient treatment protocols in the areas of lupus and lupus nephritis.
Reportedly, the US patent 5,830,652 provides methods for determining severity of lupus and lupus nephritis by correlating to the functional polymorphisms in FcGR genes. The US patent 7,022,476 provides the use of FcGR-2B promoter polymorphisms to assess the occurrence and susceptibility patterns of lupus in humans. One of the polymorphisms (-343 C/C) in FcGR-2B is enriched in lupus patients of European descent.
Vijay Ramakrishnan, founder and CEO of PIKAMAB, said: “We are incredibly pleased to secure these rights from HSS, a global leader in the areas of rheumatology and lupus research. Some of the seminal contributions such as the first demonstration of impaired clearance of immune complexes in SLE patients, the identification of the role of Fc receptors in phagocytosis, and the identification of FcGR-2A as the first human lupus gene were made by HSS investigators.
“Lupus Therasight is a proprietary approach to stratify patients based on the FcGR-3A, 2A, 3B, and 2B polymorphisms. These polymorphisms, when collectively correlated, should provide a deeper understanding on the mechanism of onset and progression of lupus and lupus nephritis, and can determine the severity of these diseases in patients irrespective of their ethnicity. The test, which includes a functional assay, can provide significant clues with regard to the progression and severity of these diseases in these patients over a period of time. We intend to quickly validate the test for the commercial launch.
“We need to know why a patient responds (or does not respond) to a lupus therapy. By partnering with biopharma companies that are involved in lupus drug development, PIKAMAB intends to develop combination products by integrating Lupus Therasight. This theragnostics-guided stratified medicine approach provides significant benefits to all the stakeholders: patients, physicians, payers, regulatory agencies, and biopharma companies. The Company is also developing a CLIA-certifiable test, which will be available next year to enable physicians and payers to incorporate Lupus Therasight as part of routine patient treatment protocols.”