BACKGROUND

Drs. Zhiwei Hu and Alan Garen and of the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry  at Yale University, Dr. Henry Kaplan at University of Louisville School of Medicine and their colleagues have published scientific  papers describing experiments involving the effects of a novel and proprietary  immunoconjugate, I-con1™. The results of these animal experiments were dramatic: I-con1™ protein therapy substantially eliminated  pathological blood vessels (PBV) from the great majority of laser-induced eye lesions in animal models of wet adult macular degeneration (“wet AMD”),  a disease widely associated with adult blindness.  In addition, therapy with virus expressing the I-con1™ gene resulted in long-term regression of human cancers xenografted into mice such that only minute residual areas of dead tumor tissue remained. Yet minimal, if any, adverse effects of treatment were detected in these animal experiments. The I-con1™ technology creates potential commercial opportunities for I-con1™ in the treatment of wet AMD, cancer and other diseases.

THE I-con™

An I-con™ is a “bi-functional protein”, so called because it contains two portions connected by a “hinge”, and each portion has a specific role to play in the activity  of the I-con™.

One portion of the I-con™ is a “homing sequence” that binds to a target on the surface of a cell (e.g., a cancer cell, a blood vessel cell, or both types of cells) whereas the other portion, the “effector sequence”, is the part of an  antibody that signals the immune system to destroy whatever cell  it attaches to.