Delivering Targeted Therapeutics

Macrophage Therapeutics (MT) is developing therapeutics that are built on its proprietary delivery system. This unique system exclusively targets receptors that are only expressed disease-causing Activated Macrophages of the innate immune system. Our short in-vivo half-life, receptor-mediated delivery, and high-binding affinities (10,000x higher than the best monoclonal antibodies) effectively eliminate off-target toxicity and do not interfere with the endogenous immune system's ability to properly respond to any future needs.

Complexities of the Immune System

The inflammatory system is highly complex with multiple active components that trigger many complex downstream effects. The macrophage is the main actor in the innate immune system which is the ultimate driver of the adaptive immune system (T cells and B cells). The pharmaceutical industry has developed many therapeutics that target specific proteins: chemokines, cytokines, proteases, checkpoint regulators, etc. produced by activated macrophages. Examples include TNF alpha, IL 1, IL 6, IL 10, IL13, VEGF, CTLA4, PDL1, PDL2, VISTA, IDO, etc.

Because of the great redundancy among the activities of cytokines, we believe that selective cytokine blockers and other approaches that target individual immune-active proteins will only be moderately effective in most patients. Studies have already demonstrated selective cytokine approaches have relatively high toxicity and lose their effectiveness, due to the emergence of resistance, particularly in chronic diseases. For this reason, researchers have been trying to develop therapeutics that inhibit more than a single agent produced by disease-causing macrophages.

Targeting Active Macrophages

MT’s approach is unique. Our therapeutics ONLY target the disease-causing macrophages and thus this approach takes into account all the products of macrophages. In addition, this approach enables easier dose selection and reduced risk of resistance. The vast majority of the macrophages in the body are non-active, even in macrophage-driven diseases, so targeting only the active state is critical to treating disease without compromising immunity.