Aethlon Medical CEO Discusses Business Catalysts and New Cancer Treatments in Exclusive Interview on SECFilings.com
There has been no shortage of news in the biotechnology industry in 2013, especially in the cancer space as new therapies are arriving that offer hope for a disease that kills 7.6 million people worldwide annually. Roche Holdings (OTCQX: RHHBY) has expanded its cancer franchise through not only FDA approval of Kadcyla™ for late-stage breast cancer patients, but also from data showing its blockbuster Avastin helped lengthen the lives of women with advanced cervical cancer. Smaller firms like Isis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ISIS) have also received good news (and a $10 million milestone payment) after AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) advanced their joint development of STAT3Rx for liver cancer.
Aethlon Medical is pioneering a new approach toward cancer therapy with its Hemopurifier® technology with a focus on eradicating tumor-secreted exosomes in the circulatory system that destroy immune cells that normally fight cancer cells. Aethlon developed the technology to eliminate a wide array of viral pathogens, including Hepatitis C, but the similarities in structures of viral pathogens and tumor-secreted exosomes led the company to conduct additional research in the area of oncology. This deduction proved clairvoyant as Aethlon's exosome research program has validated the potential utility of the Hemopurifier® as a candidate adjuvant to enhance the benefit of established chemo and emerging immunotherapies.
Jim Joyce, chief executive at Aethlon, recently discussed these topics and more in an exclusive interview published June 5 on SECFilings.com. Here is a transcript of the interview...
As it relates to cancer, what makes your company innovative?
Quite simply, we have discovered how to inhibit a mechanism that cancer deploys to defeat the immune system. To be more specific, we are able to address exosomes that are secreted by tumors to cause the death of the immune cells you need to combat cancer. These same particles also promote the spread of metastasis. I also find it insightful that the quantity of exosomes in circulation is in direct correlation with cancer progression. Meaning that if you don't have cancer, tumor-secreted exosomes will not be present. However, if you have stage-4 cancer, the presence of tumor-secreted exosomes will be massive and thus contributing to the poor prognosis of late-stage cancer patients. So, in regards to your question, our company is innovative because we have created the first therapeutic strategy to address tumor-secreted exosomes.
This sounds exciting. When do you think this discovery could translate into a product?
It already has. Its called the Aethlon Hemopurifier®, which is a medical device we created to rapidly eliminate a broad spectrum of viral pathogens, including Hepatitis C, from the circulation of infected patients. As it turns out, infectious viruses and tumor-secreted exosomes share an evolutionary structure on their surface that helps to cloak them from the surveillance of the immune system. Because our Hemopurifier® targets this unique structure, we have the opportunity to leverage our infectious disease treatment experience and expand the utility of our device to include cancer. So far, we have demonstrated that the Hemopurifier® can capture exosomes underlying breast cancer, ovarian cancer, colorectal cancer, lymphoma, and metastatic melanoma.
How do you separate yourselves from the competition?
Beyond the protection provided by our intellectual property, we don't have a perspective that we are in a competition as there is no single solution to address cancer. Our mission is to save lives by delivering a device-based therapy that can eliminate circulating exosomes and perhaps other cancer promoting targets that elude traditional drug therapies. Our objective is not to compete, it is to collaborate with others to improve the benefit of their cancer therapies and do so without adding drug toxicity. Oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention that researchers have reported that exosomes also have the ability to reduce the benefit of chemotherapeutic drugs. Additionally, I propose that the best way to unlock the potential of emerging immunotherapies would be to eliminate immune-suppressing exosomes.
Other cancer promoting targets? What does that mean?
OK, when we treat someone, consider that our technology platform is providing us with access to the entire circulatory system. There is no reason why we can't incorporate additional affinity agents to expand the scope of cancer targets we can address, perhaps as a strategy to fine-tune our therapy within a specific form of cancer. We are already doing something similar in a Department of Defense contract with DARPA. In that scenario, we are incorporating affinity agents to target various circulating factors underlying sepsis, which is a primary cause of mortality in wounded soldiers and civilians in the ICU. In regards to cancer, I have the good fortune of interacting with some of the brightest people in the field. The thought of an extracorporeal cocktail that can simultaneously address multiple cancer targets without adding drug toxicity is a very compelling proposition.
What milestone should investors be looking for in the near future?
In the short term, our primary focus is to obtain FDA approval of an investigational device exemption or IDE that would allow us to initiate human feasibility studies of our Hemopurifier® in the United States. The clearance of our IDE is an instrumental step in executing our business plan and it would likely raise the stature of our endeavors within the medical community. Based on our interactions with the FDA, we are hopeful that our IDE will get cleared this month.
Thank you for your time today, Jim. Aethlon Medical has a very exciting story and we wish the best of luck to you.
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