Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: PPHM) today announced that the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has awarded a two-year, $763,000 grant to Philip Thorpe, Ph.D., of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center for research expanding its studies of anti-phosphatidylserine (anti-PS) antibodies as potential treatments for viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) infections. Anti-PS antibodies work through a unique mechanism that allows the body's own immune system to recognize and attack virus infections. Previously published preclinical data and ongoing research support the potential of anti-PS antibodies for the treatment of VHF infections. The objective of the newly funded research is to evaluate a panel of new fully human anti-PS antibodies with different binding and functional properties as potential second-generation treatments.
The new studies complement Peregrine's ongoing research evaluating its lead anti-PS antibody bavituximab and an equivalent fully human antibody for the treatment of VHF, which is classified as a significant biodefense threat. In 2008, Peregrine was awarded a five-year research contract worth up to $44.4 million by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency for the Transformational Medical Technologies Initiative (TMTI). In previous preclinical studies funded by NIAID, bavituximab demonstrated encouraging anti-viral activity as a potential treatment for hemorrhagic fevers.
"PS is a highly specific, host-derived target that becomes exposed on cells when they are infected by a broad variety of viruses," said Dr. Thorpe, professor of pharmacology at UT Southwestern. "As a result, anti-viral approaches targeting PS have potential as broad-spectrum agents effective against a range of viral infections, including VHF and other emerging virus pathogens. This grant from NIAID will enable us to conduct studies in VHF models to assess the anti-viral potential of a panel of fully human anti-PS antibodies. We expect the results will be useful for the development of anti-PS therapies for viral hemorrhagic fevers and also will enhance our basic understanding of anti-PS mechanisms in the treatment of virus infections."
Dr. Thorpe is a pioneer in the field of anti-PS biology and its application to anti-viral and anti-cancer therapeutics. The PS-targeting technology developed by Dr. Thorpe and his colleagues at UT Southwestern is exclusively licensed to Peregrine.
"The research we are conducting under our TMTI contract to assess bavituximab and an equivalent human antibody against VHF infections is already generating promising results, and Dr. Thorpe's work under this new NIAID grant dovetails very nicely with that research," said Steven W. King, president and CEO of Peregrine. "The NIAID grant will allow our research collaborators to expand our existing VHF research to the evaluation of new PS-targeting antibodies that could extend the potential of our anti-PS platform. We expect it will result in greater understanding of the anti-viral mechanisms of our anti-PS technology platform that should be valuable for the development of new therapies against VHF as well as other serious viral infections."