A little bit about Covergence from the Yahoo boards...
Claim anti-angiogensis molecules 10-100x better than ENMD's
-----------
Anigiogenesis inhibitors act to inhibit new blood vessel formation and as such presents an exciting new therapeutic approach for cancer. The founders have pioneered studies in angiogenesis and sensitization of tumors by angiogenesis inhibition and believe, in a distinct break from competitors in the field, that the quickest route to regulatory approval will be in the area of tumor sensitization to specific pre-existing cancer therapies (i.e.,chemotherapy and radiation therapy) rather than as stand alone therapies themselves.The founders have identified and Convergence has licensed, at least four unique classes of novel, extracellular matrix-derived angiogenic inhibitors. Each family encompasses specific members which show >10-100 fold potency over the current leading angiogenesis inhibitor, endostatin. The Company's Arrestin, Restin, TumStatin and CanStatin show potent anti-tumor activity in a variety of malignant and resistant preclinical tumor models and may act via several independent mechanisms. Convergence controls proprietary yeast and E.coli production methods that are now already quite easily scalable to clinical production levels. Convergence expects to begin clinical testing within a year.There are several reasons why the Company's factors have developed such high pharmaceutical industry interest. These four families of natural products are unique since they very specifically block only endothelial cell growth. Moreover, the Convergence factors potently block blood vessel formation in response to a variety of growth factors. When competitively compared to all of the other anti-angiogenic factors being developed, only endostatin falls into this type of "pan specific" inhibitor class. However, its activity is very weak compared to the Convergence factors, and others find endostatin difficult to manufacture in an active form. Other anti-angiogenesis inhibitors such as VEGF antagonists only block one arm of a redundant tumor-derived endothelial growth pathway. Many tumors secrete bFGF for instance. Metalloprotease inhibitors have only marginal activities even in preclinical models. Other competitive agents such as anti-avb3 are likely to have significant toxicities since expression is not specific to tumor neovasculature. Since the Convergence factors are derived from naturally occurring basement membrane proteins, they are not likely to have toxicities at active doses, and indeed, none have been detected in animal models to date. |
