The Clinical Promise of Evolution Based Immunotherapeutics, such as Xeophin’s XeRA-1

Xeophin
Xeophin
Sep 8, 2018 · 3 min read
XeRA-1 binding to Tumor Necrosis Factor-A

Xeophin’s XeRA-1 Immunotherapeutic Protein is designed to treat Rheumatoid Arthritis in a new and novel way. For XeRA-1 to be a commercial success it must succeed in clinical trials as all human therapeutics do. Evolution based medicine is a concept where naturally occurring substance, crafted by Mother Nature and improving upon it to create a commercially viable product. Natural Evolution over millions of years effectively takes the heavy lifting out of the development process. Incremental improvement over vast amounts of time produce substances that are highly and finally tuned for the organism who possesses them.

Aspirin is a good example of Evolution Based medicine. In our prehistory we would have come to notice that chewing salicylate-rich plant material (such as Willow bark) reduced pain. Later we came to understand that the bark itself didn’t need to be consumed in its entirety but an active ingredient within it was the cause of pain relief. That active ingredient was characterised, refined and became the Aspirin we still use today.

There are two general things that need to happen to ensure success in Clinical Trials. Firstly, the product needs to be ‘safe’, in that it needs to not have any significant side effects (almost all pharmaceuticals have some side effects). Secondly, it needs to be ‘effective’, and do what it is intended to do to treat the condition.

XeRA-1 is a protein derived from a viral protein that has powerful anti-inflammatory properties. So why is this protein found in a virus?

For any invading viral particle to successfully infect a host cell, it will need to combat the host’s own immune response, a primary part being the inflammation response (our first line of defence). A virus that acquires or evolves an anti-inflammatory protein will be more successful and reproduce more prolifically. The virus essentially has an inbuilt ability to downregulate the very immune response designed to defeat it. Again, evolution hones these immune modulators over time, making them more and more effective. It is for this reason that some of the most powerful immune modulators found in nature are found in viruses and bacteria.

What about safety? At first it might seem counter intuitive that a protein from a virus is likely to be very safe, given viruses make us sick. To understand why these viral proteins are better off being safe you must take the viruses perspective. To replicate effectively, the host’s cells must be healthy and active post infection, or the virus won’t be able replicate. The toxicity and immunogenicity (how much the immune system notices and reacts) is under constant selective pressure to be minimised. Viruses that produce toxic proteins don’t compete or replicate well and become extinct.

In summary, mother nature has put the XeRA-1 protein under millions of years of selective pressure to be as effective as possible and as safe as possible, purely to benefit the virus that owns it. Xeophin is simply building upon that protein’s safety and efficacy, to create a proprietary therapeutic for Rheumatoid Arthritis.

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