A partnership designed to rapidly turn scientific breakthroughs into medicines has yielded a potential treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Imperial College London is working with Apollo Therapeutics to develop a prospective monoclonal antibody treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a rare life-limiting condition for which there is no cure.
The potential treatment is based on a protein that was identified in original research by the university, and is currently undergoing a proof of concept trial at Hammersmith Hospital, part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. It is hoped that the treatment will alleviate patients' symptoms and extend their lives.
Apollo Therapeutics was founded in 2016 to partner with world-leading UK universities to identify early-stage academic research breakthroughs with potential medical applications, and to partner with universities from an early stage to support their translation into new therapies. The partnership model is designed to bring these to market quickly for the benefit of patients and the UK life sciences sector.
Pulmonary arterial hypertension is a condition that affects the blood vessels in the lungs. Increased blood pressure makes the heart work harder than normal, causing damage and symptoms such as shortness of breath, chest pain, and light-headedness. PAH affects approximately 8,000 people in the UK.
Accelerating the translation of new breakthroughs
The partnership between Imperial and Apollo Therapeutics helped translate the basic science into proof-of-concept trials in ten years.
Without the partnership and funding from Apollo Therapeutics, our route would have been to form a spinout company. But with the time taken to establish a company and secure the necessary expertise and investment it would, at best, have taken many more years to progress a potentially life-saving new treatment to trials in patients. Professor Martin Wilkins
The prospective treatment (APL-9796) is based on a protein target identified by Imperial researchers in a 2015 Nature paper. Apollo worked with Imperial to translate the target into one of its flagship drug candidates, providing expertise in antibody production and supporting collaborative research with Imperial using animal models. The treatment was the first candidate from Apollo to enter Phase 1 trials and is among the first to enter trials with patients.
Professor Martin Wilkins in the National Heart & Lung Institute who, with Professor Lan Zhao, led the team behind the Nature paper, said: "Without the close partnership and ready access to funding from Apollo Therapeutics, our route would have been to form a spinout company. But with the time taken to establish a company and secure the necessary expertise and investment it would, at best, have taken many more years to progress a potentially life-saving new treatment to trials in patients."
Richard Mason, Chief Executive Officer of Apollo Therapeutics said: "Our APL-9796 program is a perfect example of the model we are deploying at Apollo Therapeutics, where we work with academics at the world's top universities such as Imperial College London in order to translate their breakthroughs in basic science into new therapies for major diseases."
"What is particularly exciting for this program is that we went full circle – translating an important scientific discovery out of Imperial into a new therapeutic candidate and then dosing the first patient with the candidate at the Hammersmith Hospital, a teaching hospital within the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. We look forward to progressing APL-9796 through the clinic as a potential treatment option for people suffering from PH, where current treatments do not treat the underlying cause of their disease."
The proof of concept trial is expected to return results quickly due to innovative remote monitoring technology pioneered in PAH patients by Professor Alex Rothman at the University of Sheffield that will make it possible to see patient outcomes in real time. An Orphan Drug Designation from the US Federal Drug Administration will further accelerate progression through trials, and the teams hope to enter later phase trials quickly if results are positive.
Close partnership
Apollo Therapeutics was founded in 2016 by the tech transfer offices of Imperial, University College London and the University of Cambridge to raise investment for translational medical research. It went on to raise £400 million in capital and become a standalone biopharmaceutical company with a mission to provide funding and expertise to support the development of new medicines from the earliest stages, benefiting from unprecedented access to research insights from leading UK universities including Imperial.
Close partnerships between researchers, clinicians, businesses and investors are supported by WestTech London, an innovation ecosystem across West London anchored by Imperial. WestTech London will become a global powerhouse for innovation and entrepreneurship, creating jobs, attracting investment and cementing the UK's position as a leader in science and technology.
Clinical trials at Imperial College Healthcare are supported by funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), a translational research partnership between Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College London, which was awarded £95m in 2022 to continue developing new experimental treatments and diagnostics for patients.
