“It’s tempting to assume it’s a drug, but what if the content of that syringe was something new?” NaNotics’ CEO Hawthorne asked. “NaNots are a new class of medicine. They are engineered to do just one thing and that’s the holy grail of medicine design, because most drugs do two things: something you want them to do, and something you don’t. In other words, side effects.”
NanNots are targeting signal molecules that trigger diseases and aging rather than targeting cells, and a NaNot comprises a biocompatible core which is a bonded capture agent with an affinity for the target, bound underneath a porous outer shield.
This nanotechnology is of great value because of their ability to target only the soluble rather than membrane forms of pathogenic molecular targets. Hawthorne says that it is “very difficult to engineer a drug which can do this because the two target forms are biochemically identical, resulting in very different effects on the body. NaNots, however, rely on geometry, which enables them to distinguish between soluble and membrane forms.”
This ability helps to avoid side effects which Hawthorne demonstrated by using the example of soluble and membrane forms of the T Cell inhibitor PD-L1; on a cancer cell PD-L1 works by ligating the inhibitory receptor PD-1 and sending the T-cell into cellular hibernation. Antibodies that are able to block this inhibitory pathway between immune cells and cancer cells represent one of the top drug categories worth over $20 billion a year.
Critical cells in the body including heart, lung, and colon cells use membrane PD-L1 to block T-cell attack; when antibodies block this they produce side effects such as pneumonitis or colitis depending on which organ has been affected.
SPD-L1 is the soluble form of PD-L1, this is elevated in 12 of 19 of the most common types of cancer, and it is bioactive while ligating PD-L1 just as effectively as membrane PD-L1. Additionally it binds and neutralises drugs against PD-L1 to reduce their efficacy.
Nanobots can be developed to be specific to sPD-L1 which can be used either as a monotherapy or as an adjunct treatment with existing cancer drugs as they can help to improve the effectiveness of treatment and reduce toxicity by lowering the required dosage of drugs. Treatment is fast acting because NaNots have a 90% or greater target depletion capacity in under 5 minute with no post injection loss of responsiveness. NaNot shielding can also prevent B-cells from interacting with capture agents and prevents formation of anti-drug antibodies; the shielding and use of biocompatible material suggests the tech should be safe even at 50-100 times the clinical dose.
The company is developing a toolkit which is hard to place a valuation on, but they suggest that the technology has a 10% rate of adjunctive use for cancers which could be worth $2 billion. This development is part of an increasing nanohealth market that has potential for a vast scope of growth over the coming years. Investors are already beginning to flood into the market space, who are attracted by the idea of supporting the next big breakthrough. NaNotics thinks they have developed a technology with the potential to revolutionise medication and therapy for age related diseases.
