Current medical treatments are often limited in their specificity and selectivity. There is a significant unmet medical need for the therapies being developed by VBS Pharmaceuticals that preferentially target diseased tissue in order to minimize unwanted side effects and increase treatment efficacy.
There is a significant unmet need for therapeutics that do not cause further complications for the patient due to harsh side effects.
Our lead therapeutic candidate, CARSKNKDC (CAR) peptide, represents a new paradigm in targeted therapy. CAR preferentially homes to, and penetrates, diseased tissue while selectively augmenting the efficacy of therapies and accelerating wound healing. CAR can selectively enhance gene therapy, boost drug effectiveness, and reduce systemic side effects by enhancing the efficacy of co-administered therapeutics.
CAR is a 9-amino-acid cyclic peptide that selectively targets and penetrates diseased tissues by binding to heparan sulfate moieties expressed by cells in injured tissues.
In preclinical animal models, CAR has demonstrated the ability to target hypertensive vessels, fibrotic lesions, areas of inflammation, acute lung injury, asthma, wounds, scars, and tumors, producing a 2- to 3-fold increase in drug activity, and 7-fold increase in gene therapy target gene expression. Furthermore, CAR peptide has demonstrated utility as a stand-alone therapeutic by producing a 2-fold decrease in wound healing time.
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