2015年1月8日讯 /生物谷BIOON/ --最近，由麻省理工学院科学家创立的生物医药研发公司Blend获得了一项总额为2100万美元的风险投资用于开发抗体药物偶联疗法治疗癌症的早期研究。研究人员希望利用转移性抗体与抗肿瘤药物偶联，从而达到靶向治疗实体瘤疾病的目的。同时，研究人员还采用纳米颗粒技术，保证药物在肿瘤患者体内能够运输到相应位置。利用这笔资金，Blend公司希望能够完成这一疗法的临床前研究。
其实，抗体药物偶联疗法并不是近两年才兴起的概念。它的提出甚至可以追溯到上世纪八十年代。这种疗法主要是通过将药物与专一性抗体偶联后，使药物能够专一性识别其要作用的组织和细胞，从而达到靶向治疗的作用。
这一概念自提出以来，已经在临床治疗中获得了巨大的成功。但是，由于抗体本身的性质，这一疗法有一些无法避免的短板。其中最重要的就是，抗体分子量过大，使得偶联后的抗体药物偶联体很难在病灶部位富集到所需要的浓度。
而Blend公司的研究人员开发出了一种"缩小版"抗体，在保留了抗体的专一性识别作用前提下，大大减小了抗体的分子量，使得其抗体偶联效率更高。但这也随之带来了一个问题，这种"缩小版"抗体在体内的半衰期要小于其"原版"抗体。
为了克服这一问题，Blend公司开发出了专门由于输送抗体药物偶联体的微型生物药物偶联体的输送平台Pentarin。Blend公司研发部门主管Richard Wooster表示目前正在进行的临床前研究表明这种设计能够极大提高药物的药效，相信这一技术将有助于开发新型癌症药物。
详细英文报道：
Blend Therapeutics, a biotech with ties to MIT serial entrepreneur Robert Langer, has hauled in $21 million in new financing to flesh out a novel approach to cancertreatment.
Headquartered in Watertown, MA, Blend is at work on an early-stage therapy that marries the proven benefits of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), designed to shuttle tumor-killing drugs to their desired targets, with nanoparticle technology that improves delivery. And the biotech's latest fundraise, a mix of equity and debt, will help it pay its way through preclinical development.
ADCs, which have been around for about 35 years, have notched some major successes in the clinic and on the market, using specifically targeted antibodies to dump cell-killing drugs on cancerous growths while sparing healthy tissues. However, getting high concentrations of such large molecules into solid tumors has proven difficult for many drug developers, Blend R&D chief Richard Wooster said, leading to the invention of shrunken-down antibodies that can better penetrate cancerous tissues. But those smaller agents have shorter half-lives than their bigger counterparts, Wooster said, leading to efficacy issues when they're swept out of the bloodstream before they can make a meaningful difference.
That's where Blend's platform, called Pentarin, stands out. The company's technology takes miniaturized biologic drug conjugates (mBDCs)--which are essentially scaled-down ADCs--and encapsulates them in a nanoparticle coating designed to stick around in the body, creating a hybrid treatment that can succeed where past therapies have failed. The result, Blend believes, is a novel class of cancer drugs.
The biotech's lead Pentarin program is BTP-277, which Wooster said has shown "very strong and exciting efficacy" in preclinical animal studies. The Blend expects to kick off IND-enabling studies before the middle of the year, clearing the way for clinical trials thereafter.
And beyond developing its top prospect, Blend has spent the last 18 months polishing up the Pentarin platform so that it can be engineered to home in on other antigens. In tandem with its latest fundraise, the company in-licensed some new targeting ligands that expand the applications for Pentarin, cofounder and Chairman Omid Farokhzad said, and Blend is in the midst of meetings with potential partners looking to cut in on the technology.
All of the biotech's previous investors, including New Enterprise Associates andFlagship Ventures, joined in on the latest fundraise. Outside of its Pentarin-focused plans, Blend is earmarking some of the funds for BTP-114, a platinum-based cancer treatment slated to start clinical trials in 2015.