Augurex Reports Positive Data for RA Blood Test and Drug Target at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR)
By Augurex Life Sciences Corp, PRNEFriday, May 27, 2011
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 28, 2011 -
- Company's Novel Biomarker and Drug Target Could Represent the
First Personalized Medicine in RA-Promise for Future Targeted Therapy in a
Multi-factorial Disease
Augurex Life Sciences Corp. today reported that in London at
the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Conference, leading arthritis
researchers presented important data on Augurex's rheumatoid arthritis (RA)
biomarker blood test and novel drug target.
RA is a disease that affects approximately 10 million people
worldwide; however, it can be difficult for a primary care physician to
diagnose because the joint pain symptoms are common to other conditions. This
often delays RA patient referral to an arthritis specialist where they could
otherwise receive therapies to treat or possibly halt the disease. RA is a
particularly debilitative form of arthritis that, if left untreated, results
in 70% of patients developing irreversible joint damage within 2 years of
symptom onset.
This blood test measures 14-3-3h, a protein that is elevated
in the blood of patients with RA while it is relatively absent in healthy
people and those with other types of auto-immune conditions. The 14-3-3h
protein was evaluated in 135 RA patients and 130 controls showing that if
patients were positive for the protein, they had a 5 to 50 times greater
likelihood of having RA and that its levels were independent of another
commonly used blood test called Rheumatoid Factor or RF. What this means is
that 14-3-3h may be combined with other blood tests to accurately capture at
least 87% of patients with RA.
"The real focus in RA these days is to ensure that patients
are identified, ideally early in the course of disease, so that they can get
on appropriate treatments that may significantly improve their short and
long-term outcome. What we are seeing in the data is that a blood test like
this one, could assist in identifying more patients that may have gone longer
before being diagnosed," says Dr. Walter Maksymowych who is the lead
investigator on this study, co-discoverer of 14-3-3h in arthritis and Medical
Research Professor of Medicine and Rheumatologist at the University of
Alberta, Canada.
Other data presented by Dr. Maksymowych at EULAR, described
what 14-3-3h's biological role could be in the development of inflammatory
arthritis. Although the protein normally exists inside of healthy cells, in
RA it is externalized and acts back on cells activating key intracellular
pathways causing harmful substances such as, TNF-a, IL-6, RANKL and MMP-9 to
be produced which in turn cause inflammation and joint damage. Antibody
compounds targeted at the 14-3-3h protein were shown to block its
disease-related effects in cells. The uniqueness of the 14-3-3h protein is
that it's not only measurable in blood to help identify patients with RA but
it seems that if you reduce its harmful biological effects with antibodies or
other drugs that could inactivate this protein you may be able to treat the
disease.
In RA, not unlike cancer, the development of the disease
includes multiple factors that act to varying degrees in different patients.
Therefore, in multi-factorial diseases like RA, targeted therapies are highly
desirable that focus on the most prominent disease contributors in individual
patients. "If you have a direct companion diagnostic blood test that can
specifically identify patients who most need the therapy and that also gives
you an indication of how well the drug is working, that's the ideal
therapeutic management scenario," states Dr. Maksymowych.
If the continued development efforts of the drug are
successful then this protein may represent the first "personalized medicine"
target in rheumatology. The way this would work is that, in patients who have
very little, or no 14-3-3h you would not treat them with the drug that
targets the protein, while in those who have higher levels, you can dose them
with the appropriate amount of anti-14-3-3h drug to remove it from the body
and use the blood test to monitor their response over time.
For further information: Web: www.augurex.com tel: +44-778-839-3319
.
Tags: Augurex Life Sciences Corp, British columbia, May 28, Vancouver