RE:RE:RE:RE:Denali Therapeutics update I wrote out an answer to BearDownAZ earlier today but just when I was going to post it, I saw that Mark had posted that he was travelling and would post an answer tomorrow. I decided to hold my post until Mark posted. Since then, Mark has posted, more than he might have intended. It's clear that he employed a whole bunch of brainpower to the question. Lol.
Hey, if I was a regular reader here, I'd ask a whole bunch o' questions. Who knows what might get posted.
Anyway, this was my answer to BearDownAZ's original question. This isn't half as much fun as Mark's.
Angiochem? They haven't released any news since 2016. Heard rumours of near death experiences for them.
They had a deal with Geron (GSK) for ANG1005, which Geron renamed GRN1005. Apparently Geron did not have a good experience with the drug and dropped the deal quite quickly. ANG1005 is/was an angiopep-2 paclitaxel conjugate. Paclitaxel can never be to brain metastases what Herceptin is to brain tumours.
My understanding of Angiopep-2 is that fusion proteins cannot be made from it with monoclonal antibodies. (Paclitaxel is not a monoclonal antibody. At 852 Daltons it is slightly larger than a small molecule. ANG001 consists of Angiopep- and several paclitaxol molecules.) Although Angiochem still maintains on their website that Angiopep-2 can transport all sorts of things, including antibodies, we've never seen them actually do it in vitro, in vivo or anywhere else.
With respect to comparisons of the peptides, Angiopep-2 and xB3, they might share a common receptor, LRP-1, but as a carrier or vector, Angiopep-2 does not appear to come close to the near-universal transport capabilities, half-life and other pharmacokinetic (PK) attributes that xB3 has as a carrier.
Also, when you research the scientific papers for Angiopep-2, you'll find Reinhard Gabathuler's name all over them. Gaba left Angiochem, came to Bioasis. Nobody at Bioasis ever threw Angiochem or Angiopep-2 under the bus, at least not to me, but let's just say that there didn't seem to be a lot of worry about Angiopep-2 being really competitive with xB3.
jdstox