Celtaxsys technology modulates inflammatory response

April 2nd, 2008

By Allan Maurer

ATLANTA—Some cancers repulse immune system cells, while autoimmune diseases attract them where they’re not wanted. Celtaxsys, a biotech company in the Georgia Tech Advanced Technology Development Center, is developing a unique way to get those immune cells to where they’re needed, or block them where they are not.

This could lead to new drugs to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and others.

Bill Reddick, president of the company tells TechJournal South the company was originally founded August 2004, but spent its first year fund-raising. Reddick’s former employer, Master’s Capital, and GLG, the largest hedge fund in Europe, pumped $5.7 million into the company Aug. 2005.

Reddick says the fact that the company had a turnkey space such as that at ATDC ready to move into helped the company land its financing. The 10-employee company is hiring.

Chemical attraction is a fundamental process by which cells move in the body, Reddick explains. “Cues are sent out. Cells in the blood recognize the cues. They exit the blood and crawl toward a signal.”

Assays the secret sauce
“Our secret sauce,” says Reddick, “is a series of assays that detect and quantify chemo-repulsion. By using these, we’re able to detect and identify proteins that cause the immune system to move backwards.”

That is important for several reasons. “A whole series of diseases are caused by too many immune cells aggregating in the wrong place,” he says. “In asthma, for instance, errant signals tell immune cells to go to the lungs, which causes difficulty in breathing.” Remove them and you can treat the asthma, he adds.

The company’s initial focus, he says, are cancerous tumors that make chemo-repellants that chase immune cells away. “If the tumor can make immune cells go away, it can grow and prosper,” Reddick says. “Our compounds would block the chemo-repellant to get a more complete immune response with fewer side effects. All we really do is allow the immune system to do what it’s already primed to do.”

The therapy could be an adjunct to others that prime the immune system to recognize tumors and fight them, he says. The company’s first target will be three proteins produced by tumors protecting them from the immune system that it has identified. “These proteins are specific to the disease process.”

Clear strategy to a drug
That means blocking them won’t cause the side-effects a broader therapy might.

“We’ve identified more than 15 compounds we’re testing in animal models to confirm in vitro results,” he says. “From there, we see a clear strategy to a drug.”

“What I think is the real driver for us is the assays,” Reddick says. “We’re not assuming we’ve already found the ultimate chemo-repellant. We continue to screen libraries of compounds. We believe we’ll be able to identify very effective chemo-repellants that can be used as drugs.

The company would prefer to find chemical agents rather than proteins to do the job, he says. “It’s hard to take a protein into clinical trials,” he explains. “Human proteins are expensive to make and sell as therapeutics. We’d rather have a chemical that is easier to synthesize and more stable in the blood.”

Reddick warns that there may be redundancy built into a tumor or disease process. “If that’s the case, our task would be far more difficult than it appears. But we’ve seen enough data to know the effect is real and believe that if we keep screening, we’ll find better drugs.”

The company is definitely looking for partners, he says. “It would be great to partner with companies that have large compound libraries.”

On the Web: www.celtaxsys.com

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Celtaxsys technology modulates inflammatory response

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