BIND Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage nanomedicine company developing targeted and programmable therapeutics called Accurins, and Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biopharmaceutical company pioneering the development of uroguanylin analogs as potential new treatments for functional gastrointestinal (GI) disorders and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), have entered into a research collaboration to engineer Accurins incorporating Synergy's proprietary uroguanylin analogs to explore the potential targeting of guanylate cyclase-C (GC-C) receptors expressed on tumors, specifically GI malignancies. Upon achievement of proof-of-concept, the companies anticipate expanding the collaboration to enhance the potential effect of uroguanylin-based Accurins by incorporating therapeutic payloads.
"This collaboration represents another important advance as we develop Accurins with the potential to target a broad range of cells with novel therapeutic payloads," said Jonathan Yingling, Ph.D., chief scientific officer, BIND Therapeutics. "The versatility of our platform is demonstrated by our wide range of collaborations and the ability to leverage our technology platform in a wide variety of applications. We believe the complementary technologies of Synergy and BIND have the potential to generate novel uroguanylin-based therapies that could have a profound impact on the treatment of diseases."
Uroguanylin is a naturally occurring GI peptide and activator of the intestinal GC-C receptor, which is a known target for stimulating a variety of physiological responses. Plecanatide, Synergy's lead uroguanylin analog for functional GI disorders, successfully completed phase 3 clinical trials for chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) in 2015, and the company recently filed a new drug application (NDA) for plecanatide to treat CIC. Synergy also recently announced positive data on its second uroguanylin analog, dolcanatide, in a phase 1b proof-of-concept study in ulcerative colitis patients.
"We are pleased to collaborate with BIND Therapeutics on this project, which we believe can broaden the potential therapeutic applications of our proprietary uroguanylin-based platform," said Kunwar Shailubhai, Ph.D., M.B.A., chief scientific officer and executive vice president of Synergy Pharmaceuticals. "BIND's Accurin technology has been shown to target diseased tissues with a wide variety of therapeutic payloads. We have separately presented data showing that uroguanylin analogs specifically bind to different types of colorectal polyps and tumor in mice. Together, we believe that we can create uroguanylin-based Accurins that have the potential to provide new treatment options in GI cancer."
This early research collaboration is not expected to have a material financial impact on Synergy Pharmaceuticals or BIND Therapeutics.
Accurins, a new class of targeted therapeutics developed using BIND's Medicinal Nanoengineering platform, are nanoparticles engineered to have a profound impact on the treatment of disease. The elegant and novel design of Accurins allow for prolonged circulation, controlled and tunable release and selective targeting of a therapeutic payload to diseased tissue or cells while avoiding immune surveillance detection and systemic toxicities.
Accurins can be engineered for multiple therapeutic applications and have the potential to integrate numerous payloads, including highly potent drugs with mechanism-based toxicities that limit therapeutic benefit, DNA, RNA, proteins and immunotherapy agents. This attribute enables Accurins to target multiple diseases, including cancer, inflammatory, vascular, and infectious disease.