Alegend, Dr. Ken Hoober is the Chief Scientific Officer / Co-Owner of Susavion Biosciences, Inc (SBI). In his remarkable career of profound years, he has researched, served, and studied in wellknown universities like The University of Michigan (graduate school), postdoctoral years at Vanderbilt University and The Rockefeller University, and faculty positions at Rutgers University, Temple University School of Medicine, Arizona State University, and The Carlsberg Laboratory. He and Dr. Laura Eggink founded SBI with the aim of seeking innovative solutions and taking the biotech industry by storm.
About Susavion Bioscience Inc (SBI)
SBI’s proprietary MultiValent Peptide Mimetic™ (MVPM™) platform builds on the scientific insight that peptide mimetics of naturally occurring sugars can regulate the body’s immune system to fight disease, turning it “up” to stimulate attacks on pathogens and malignant cells or “down” to reduce inhibitory checkpoints or inflammation. Moreover, multivalency dramatically increases avidity of the peptides to receptors.
MVPM™ drug candidates, which have shown no toxicity in preclinical studies, are efficacious in POC studies both as monotherapy or adjunctively with standard-of-care drugs. Synthesized using standard small molecule chemical methods, the peptides are highly specific to their molecular targets, and they are more effective than natural sugars and thus facilitate cross-cell signalling for greater therapeutic impact. To date, several drug candidates are poised to enter IND studies for the treatment of ovarian and brain cancer and eczema. SBI continues to investigate additional potential platform therapies, where restoring the body’s natural immune response is central to fighting disease.
How does SBI’s drugs work?
Not all cancers can be treated equally. Among the cancers for which clinicians struggle to find effective therapies, ovarian cancer and glioblastoma are among the most challenging, with very few – if any – effective options.
SBI’s MVPM™ drug candidates bring a robust treatment to patients suffering from these diseases, with no additional toxicity. In ovarian cancer, POC data show that MVPM™ peptides match the efficacy of paclitaxel with fewer side effects, and when used adjunctively with anti-PD-1 can restore the mAb’s efficacy for patients who have developed tolerance. Thus, SBI’s drug has the potential to be the leading immunotherapeutic treatment for ovarian cancer.
Glioblastoma patients essentially have no therapeutic options; MVPM™ mimetics show high efficacy with no toxicity in POC studies when used adjunctively with low-dose radiation, driving macrophages into the brain to attack the tumor. MVPM™ lead peptides target the ‘tuneable’ C-type lectin receptor CLEC10A expressed by dendritic cells and M2a macrophages that activate T cells to destroy malignant cells. These macrophages are the most abundant phenotype in skin, the peritoneal cavity, and the brain. SBI’s peptides are powerful tools to manipulate the activity of these cells. In addition, peptide mimetics of sialic acid bind Siglecs, which are inhibitory receptors on most immune cells.
Efficiently Solving the Problems
MVPM™ compounds match or restore efficacy to standard ovarian cancer drugs and offer superior efficacy with radiation in glioblastoma. MVPM™ technology treats pediatric eczema with compounds that provide cross-linking activity to repair the stratum corneum of the skin and also target the C-type lectin receptor CLEC10A expressed by dermal dendritic cells and macrophages. Its technology has the potential for revolutionizing the topical treatment of eczema and reducing the use of steroids.
The global ovarian cancer market was worth USD 1.54 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a 23.8% CAGR between 2022 and 2030 and reach around USD 19.92 billion. The eczema market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 24% to reach 19 billion by 2027.
Serving Clients with Best-in-class Products and Services
SBI serves its clients by informing the healthcare research community by publishing its discoveries. Its products have been extensively characterized and validated as effective drugs in proof-of-concept experiments. The next stage of development is initiating IND-enabling studies to gain access to clinical trials. Therefore, it is currently seeking a partner, out-licensing to a company interested in further development, or a full acquisition by a pharma company. For this purpose, it engaged consultant firms to act as its agent in negotiating a deal.
About SBI’s Mission
To develop SBI’s patented MultiValent Peptide Mimetic (MVPM)™ Technology platform to harness the innate power of the immune system to combat diseases with non-toxic, effective, and nonimmunosuppressive treatments.
At SBI, the organization prides itself on doing things differently. It is at the forefront of scientific innovation, leading the charge in the effort to solve some of healthcare’s most intractable problems. The company’s revolutionary therapy is safe and non-toxic, and it cares about the people its research will benefit—always balancing its cutting-edge technology with humanity.
SBI’s purpose is to discover drugs that modulate the immune system by binding to receptors that are specific for sugar ligands. Normally, these receptors are shielded by natural ligands that bind with low affinity. SBI developed peptide mimetics of the sugar ligands that bind with high affinity and therefore enable access to these important regulatory receptors.
Emerging Trends and Challenges for the Company
Science is a three-dimensional fractal with many people working at the edges to extend the frontier of knowledge. It is a challenge to stay informed of these advances that are being published. Obscure is the research that is being done within companies. Most efforts generate ‘similars’ but occasionally a breakthrough occurs that seeds a new branch. Often an amount of time must pass before a discovery is accepted and developed further. A challenge is the insufficient level of funding to support innovation because investors wish to minimize risk.
SBI has been fortunate to have supportive investors who have provided a sustainable level of funding for preclinical development. Its technology is poised for the next stage, which requires regulatory approval for clinical trials. To resolve this challenge, it is seeking additional investors or a pharma company with the resources to either partner, license its technology or acquire the company.
Ken’s Journey to the Forefront
Ken found his mind drifting back over his long career to occasional unexpected results that emerged from his experiments. These results were often the product of a remarkable confluence of people and facilities, a lesson in support of collaboration in science. Perhaps even more basic was the role of serendipity that led to discoveries. The important lesson is: the discovery cannot be found without performing the experiment. As important is the model system chosen to explore the idea.
During his formative years as a graduate student in Dr. Isadore Bernstein’s lab at the University of Michigan, he discovered filaggrin, an essential protein in differentiation of the epidermis. He learned the power of thinking during a postdoctoral year with Dr. Stanley Cohen at Vancerbilt University, who won the Nobel Prize for his work with epidermal growth factor. At The Rockefeller University, he characterized chloroplast ribosomes with Dr. Gunter Blobel, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering the ‘signal sequence’ for protein secretion, and was introduced to membrane biogenesis by Dr. George Palade, an electron microscopist who received the Nobel Prize for pioneering work in cell biology. Most of Ken’s subsequent career was spent studying membrane biogenesis in the chloroplast of a green alga, an excellent model system established by Dr. Palade.
Factors that led to forming the company were the following.
• Dr. Laura Eggink was discovering peptides that bound to receptors on immune cells. This was a new area of research in their lab at Arizona State University
• As Ken retired from the university, together they made the bold move to form a company to further develop the peptides.
• They found a suite off-campus and built a lab for biochemistry and cell biology. They had a grant from a foundation that supported the initial studies. As a semi-virtual company, they developed an efficient business model with which they were pioneers in immuno-oncology.
• They engaged the skills of contract research organizations to perform studies with viral and animal models. The operations, both in-house and with CROs, were not significantly affected by the Covid pandemic. The company had no difficulty in continuing to publish research papers and review articles.
His most recent intellectual activities resulted in three notable achievements. First, the discovery that peptide ligands of CLEC10A can stimulate activity of the receptor on immune cells or induce tolerance. Second, the peptide mimetic of sialic acid binds to Siglecs at nanomolar concentrations and blocks the activity of these receptors that act as checkpoint-type inhibitors and stimulates anti-viral phagocytic activity of macrophages. Third, the discovery of the profound activity of peptides to treat eczema by serving as a substrate for transglutaminase 2. This enzyme is induced by injury to the skin and—with the peptide—repairs the surface barrier.
