Company Performance Metrics
Immune Control, Inc. was formed in 2001 based on technology developed in the laboratories of Professors Bradford Jameson and Ana Tretiakova, Department of Biochemistry, Drexel University College of Medicine. Initial funding came from Argil Management, LLC, of Boston. In 2003, Stephen Roth, Ph.D., became president and CEO of Immune Control.
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Company plans to complete an investigational new drug (IND) application to be submitted to the Food and Drug Agency in 2005. The IND application will propose the use of an already marketed serotonin antagonist in multiple myeloma patients in a small, and relatively short, phase 1/2 clinical trial. If the drug has significant, clinical efficacy against the malignant B cells characteristic of multiple myeloma, they would immediately begin plans for a larger, phase 3 trial. Positive results in the first trial would constitute clinical proof-of-concept for the Company's basic premise-that serotonin antagonists have clinical utility against inappropriately activated immune cells.
Another Company goal focuses on proprietary serotonin antagonists that are more potent than those already approved, and that do not cross the blood-brain barrier, making them free of adverse neurological side-effects. Such new chemical entities would be screened for their abilities to bind to specific immunological serotonin receptors, which are now being characterized. The Company has made progress with at least two receptors, one of which has apparently not previously been described. Research on the molecular biology of the receptors is underway at Drexel University College of Medicine, and new chemical entities to be screened for serotonin antagonist activity are being synthesized for the Company.
Ultimately, they hope to find compounds that can be used against many hematologic cancers, transplant rejection, and against a host of diseases that are all caused by inappropriate lymphocyte activation. Examples of such diseases are type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, asthma, and many of the muscular dystrophies. The market size for drugs that treat each of these conditions exceeds a billion dollars.
Simultaneously, the Company aggressively protects its intellectual property with patent applications. Novel use applications, novel compound applications, and novel receptor applications are all examples of the Company's existing IP portfolio, which has been licensed exclusively and worldwide to the Company by Drexel University.
