DISEASE APPLICATIONS
Mount Tam Biotechnologies was established to develop, optimize and bring to market leading medical compounds to improve the health and well-being of millions of people who have been affected by autoimmune diseases.
Autoimmune Diseases
Autoimmune diseases develop when the body’s immune system loses the ability to differentiate between the body’s own cells and foreign invaders (e.g. antigens such as bacteria and viruses). The outcome is an immune response that destroys normal, healthy body tissues that may result in the destruction of one or more types of body tissues, abnormal growth of organs, or changes in organ function. Autoimmune diseases are estimated to be one of the top 10 leading causes of death among women and affect up to 50 million Americans.
Mount Tam Biotechnologies is currently focusing the direction of its product development on two autoimmune diseases - lupus and multiple sclerosis. Its first and most advanced product, TAM-01, is focused on systemic lupus erythematosus.
Lupus
The exact etiology of lupus is unknown. Factors may include genetic predisposition, environmental factors (e.g. stress, UV light, smoking, and chemical exposure), immunoregulatory issues, hormonal imbalance, epigenetic and infections.
As an autoimmune disease, lupus makes the immune system unable to differentiate between healthy tissues and foreign invaders, leading the immune system to attack healthy tissues using its own antibodies. This may cause inflammation of the joints, heart, lungs, kidneys, brain and blood vessels. Lupus is a disease that goes through stages of remission and flares, when its side effects are at its worst.
There are four different types of lupus. These include:
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is the most common form of lupus, affecting over 70% of lupus patients. Lupus nephritis (LN) is the most common side effect for people with SLE, affecting up to 60% of SLE patients. LN is a kidney inflammation that may lead to significant illness and even death. Without treatment, 10% to 30% of people with LN develop kidney failure. People with LN are also at a high risk for cancer, primarily B-cell Lymphoma. LN-diagnosed patients are also at high risk for heart and blood vessel problems.
Discoid (Cutaneous) is a form of lupus that only affects the skin and causes rashes. These rashes are usually found on the face, neck and scalp. This type of Lupus does not affect any of the internal body organs. However, 1 in 10 discoid lupus patients will develop SLE.
Drug-Induced Lupus (DIL) occurs after a person takes certain types of medications, including hydralazine, a hypertension drug, and procainamide, a drug used to treat cardiac arrhythmias. The symptoms are similar to SLE, but they usually disappear when the treatment is discontinued.
Neonatal Lupus is a rare form of lupus that occurs when a mother with lupus passes on autoantibodies to her child through her fetus. This condition can cause skin rashes, anemia or liver problems. Usually children will have visible rashes, but symptoms go away after a few months. Some children have heart and blood complications.
Lupus is part of an expanding orphan drug market. To learn more about the orhan drug market and the market that Mount Tam Biotechnologies focuses on, click here.
Mount Tam's TAM-01
TAM-01 is positioned favorably for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Its mechanism of action (mTOR inhibition) has established proof-of-concept in SLE preclinically (in mouse models of the disease), clinically (in clinical research studies) and in clinical practice for nearly a decade.
Mount Tam's rapalog library has been designed to optimize mTORC1/mTORC2 inhibition balance to improve the safety of the compounds over Rapamycin/Temsirolimus (Hyperlipidemia, hypercholesterolemia, glucose intolerance), optimize efficacy in selective autoimmune diseases, and improve pharmacokinetics over rapamycin to enable intermittent dosing.