Vascular BioSciences Awarded $2 Million Phase II STTR Grant From NHLBI to Develop CAR Peptide as a Targeted Therapy for Pulmonary Hypertension
Grant awarded in partnership with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Durham, North Carolina – Vascular BioSciences (VBS) is proud to report the award of Phase II STTR grant funding from the U.S. National Heart Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health for the development of CAR peptide as a targeted therapy for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). PAH affects thousands of people in the United States and has no known cure. Current therapies are expensive, cause significant side effects, and only modestly improve patient quality of life.
In Phase I of this STTR grant, CAR peptide was shown to be effective in potentiating current treatments for PAH, while reducing undesirable side effects in an animal model of severe PAH. During this phase, an assay to detect CAR concentrations in blood using mass spectrometry for Phase II pharmacokinetic studies was also developed.
With the Phase II award of $2 million, VBS will conduct additional pharmacodynamic preclinical studies studying the effectiveness of CAR combined with a variety of current PAH treatments, as well as different combinations of PAH treatments. Additionally, VBS will perform safety pharmacology on CAR and explore CAR’s bioavailability through multiple routes of administration. The goal is to demonstrate that co-administration of CAR can significantly improve the effectiveness and safety of existing PAH therapies, as well as demonstrate CAR’s safety for clinical translation.
Vascular BioSciences CEO and project PI, David Mann, added: “We are extremely pleased to announce the receipt of this highly competitive award. We look forward to continuing to work with Drs. Paul Yu and Aaron Waxman of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School to advance CAR peptide into the clinic.”
This content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital or Harvard Medical School.
About Vascular BioSciences
Vascular BioSciences, a diversified biomedical company with operations in California and North Carolina, provides targeted solutions for serious diseases in order to enhance and prolong human life.
Vascular BioSciences makes interventional catheters to obtain endoarterial biopsies, provides molecular diagnostic services, and through its majority owned subsidiary VBS Pharmaceuticals, develops targeted therapeutics for patients with difficult-to-treat diseases.
More information about VBS is available at www.vascularbiosciences.com
For more information, please contact dmann@vascularbiosciences.com