Laureate Pharma and Iconic Therapeutics complete manufacturing hI-con1 recombinant Fc-Factor VII fusion protein

Laureate Pharma, Inc., a full-service biopharmaceutical development and protein production company specializing in the development and GMP manufacture of monoclonal antibodies, fusion proteins and other therapeutic protein products, and Iconic Therapeutics, a company focused on the development of treatments for wet adult macular degeneration (wet AMD) and other ophthalmic diseases, today announced the completion of the manufacture of the first GMP lot of hI-con1(TM) recombinant Fc-Factor VII fusion protein.
"We are very excited that Iconic Therapeutics now has material to test this new therapy for patients with macular degeneration and other diseases," said Robert J. Broeze, Ph. D., President & CEO of Laureate Pharma. "This is a testimonial to our strong partnership with Iconic and our expertise in working with fusion proteins." "Due to the unique properties of Iconic's hI-con1(TM) fusion protein product, this project involved very close collaboration between our process-development team at Laureate and Iconic's product-development team," added Michiel E. Ultee, Ph.D., Vice President of Process Sciences.

"With clinical material now in hand, we have moved a giant step forward in our plans for hI-con1(TM). We are excited about its prospects as a novel and powerful approach for the therapy of wet AMD," said Kirk Dornbush, President of Iconic Therapeutics. "We are very pleased with the strong working relationship that we established with Laureate Pharma."

hI-con1(TM) is a recombinant protein intended to specifically attack and destroy pathological blood vessels (PBVs) with no effect on normal blood vessels. Since wet AMD is characterized by the invasion of PBVs into the eye, a drug that destroys these blood vessels could be very useful in treatment of this disease. In addition, hI-con1(TM) is thought to act differently from other wet AMD treatments, which reduce the effects of pathological blood vessel invasion into the eye but do not appear to kill those blood vessels. In studies with mice and pigs, a single injection of hI-con1(TM) into the eye resulted in dramatic reduction of pathological blood vessels.

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