Parvus proprietary pMHC nanomedicine drug candidates (a.k.a. NavacimsTM) are designed to reverse autoimmune disease by reprogramming disease-causing T cells to differentiate and expand into disease-regulating Treg cells
Autoimmune disease accounts for approximately 100 different diseases in which the body’s immune system improperly attacks and destroys a patient’s own tissues due to a loss of immune tolerance. There is currently no cure for autoimmune disease, and current treatments create non-specific suppression of the immune response, frequently resulting in unacceptable side effects such as increased risk of infection and cancer.
There is a large medical need for improved treatments that can restore immune tolerance to specific tissues without causing generalized immune suppression.
Parvus pMHC nanomedicine (a.k.a. NavacimsTM) present disease-specific peptide-MHC to T cell receptors
These pMHC nanomedicines consist of multiple copies of a human-specific peptide-major histocompatibility complex conjugated covalently to an iron-dextran nanoparticle with the peptide and major histocompatibility complex specific for each target autoimmune indication.
Enabling Disease-Specific Immunoregulation
The Parvus pMHC nanomedicines find specific disease-causing autoantigen-experienced T cells and present a high-density array of disease specific peptide-MHC to cognate T cell receptors (TCR). The pMHC nanomedicine high density multi-valent binding to TCR micro-clusters causes signaling which reprograms disease-causing T cells (effectors) to multiply and differentiate into disease-regulating Treg cells (suppressors). In the target diseased organ, Treg cells selectively suppress autoimmune attacks on self.
A key therapeutic advantage of the Parvus approach is that pMHC nanomedicine treatment effect does not require delivery of multiple peptides driving the disease. Rather, Parvus pMHC nanomedicines with a single disease relevant peptide are broadly effective in the diseased organ. The pMHC nanomedicine induce a massive expansion of disease-specific Tregs, and it is this expanded population of Tregs that in turn activate other immune regulatory cells (including B cells) to broadly shut down the activity of inflammatory cells contributing to the disease.
In preclinical disease models, Parvus pMHC nanomedicine have demonstrated broad therapeutic activity and disease reversal across a range of autoimmune disorders including liver autoimmune diseases, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, organ transplant rejection, and celiac disease.
The Parvus pMHC nanomedicine harnesses the patient’s own immune system to trigger in vivo formation and expansion of antigen-specific Treg cells which leads to a resolution of inflammation in the target tissue without affecting normal functions of the immune system.