Acton, Mass., June 3, 2010 – PAKA Pulmonary Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that preclinical results with its platform technology for treatment of lung diseases were published on line in this week’s Early Edition of PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The article titled “A human surfactant peptide-elastase inhibitor construct as a treatment for emphysema” was authored by PAKA’s Chief Scientific Officer, Frank Guarnieri, and his collaborators Jean L. Spencer, Edgar C. Lucey, Matthew A. Nugent, and Phillip J. Stone at Boston University and Virginia Commonwealth University.
The full text is available at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/05/12/1001349107.full.pdf.For over 20 years, pharmaceutical companies have attempted to develop inhibitors of the enzyme neutrophil elastase as treatments for emphysema.
“We hypothesized that these potent enzyme inhibitors were ineffective because of rapid clearance from the lungs,” Dr. Guarnieri explained. “By coupling one such small molecule to a peptide from human lung surfactant protein B “SP-B”, we sought to anchor the drug to the lung surface and thereby maintain an effective concentration at the site of disease. Remarkably, a single dose of our drug-peptide conjugate conferred complete protection from lung damage for four weeks in a mouse model of emphysema,” he continued.
“Having achieved preclinical proof of concept for our technology in emphysema, we are now working to extend these findings to other lung diseases,” said Lee Brettman, MD, CEO of PAKA. “For example, we believe that an antibiotic coupled to SP-B may prove highly effective in treating drug-resistant lung infections, such as those acquired by the roughly 250,000 patients per year in the US who develop ventilator associated pneumonia during hospitalizations for other illnesses,” he added.
About PAKA
PAKA Pulmonary Pharmaceuticals (www.pakapharma.com) is a preclinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing new treatments for lung diseases based on its proprietary drug delivery technology. By coupling a proven small-molecule drug to a peptide from human Lung Surfactant Protein B (“SP-B”) and delivering the conjugate by inhalation we overcome two key challenges in treating many lung diseases: delivering an active agent to the vast lung surface area and keeping it there at an effective concentration without systemic side effects. We intend to use this approach to create patentable new drugs for a range of lung diseases and to develop these products through collaboration and licensing arrangements.
