Paradox Immunotherapeutics is an Ontario-based pharmaceutical company developing immunotherapies for rare diseases that cause organ failure. Using a proven-successful immunotherapy drug design platform, they design drugs that harness the body’s own immune system to clear lethal deposits from affected organs and reverse organ damage. The company is founded by the same team that designed PRX004, an immunotherapy to treat heart failure caused by transthyretin (ATTR) amyloidosis. PRX004 was licensed to Prothena Biosciences Inc. (So. South Francisco, USA) by University Health Network (Toronto, Canada) and entered FDA clinical trials in 2018 (NCT#03336580). Using the same platform technology, their lead candidate includes a potential treatment for immunoglobulin light chain (AL) cardiac amyloidosis, another cause of heart failure for which no first-line therapy currently exists and a US market opportunity of ~$3.2B. Their other discovery pipelines include treatments for chronic renal failure, ALS, and frontotemporal dementia. With a team of experts in immunotherapy drug design, they possess an orphan drug discovery platform for the potential treatment of ~30 rare diseases, a platform technology which has already sparked the interest of major players in the pharmaceutical industry.
Well done for the poster prize!