Stem Cell Theranostics and CapellaBio Announce Cardio-Oncology Collaboration and Discovery of a Novel Class of Cardioprotective Drug Therapies

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Stem Cell Theranostics (SCT) and CapellaBio announced today that they have established a cardio-oncology collaboration to discover novel drug therapies to prevent cardiotoxicity associated with various oncology drugs. By combining CapellaBio's SMarTR computational analysis platform with SCT's iPSC-derived cardiomyocyte discovery platform, advanced drug leads have been identified in the first of a series of programs.  

Cancer survivors have an 8-fold higher risk of death from cardiac-related events than the general population and a 15-fold increased risk of developing heart failure. The underlying cause has been attributed to the effects of cardiotoxic cancer therapies such as anthracyclines, protein kinase inhibitors and antibody therapies. 

The first collaborative program is focused on discovering cardioprotective drugs to prevent anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity. There is currently only one FDA-approved agent, Dexrazoxane, but this has limited indication approval and has not been widely used due to concerns that it may interfere with the anti-tumor activity of anthracyclines. Novel cardioprotectants with improved efficacy and safety profiles that could be used across multiple indications would offer significant clinical benefit.

"Combining a computational biomedicine approach with advanced iPSC-derived preclinical models promises to dramatically accelerate the discovery of novel therapies," said Chris Armstrong, CEO of Stem Cell Theranostics. "In less than 6 months, our collaboration with CapellaBio has led to the discovery and validation of several promising cardioprotectant drug leads with best-in-class properties."

"We are very fortunate to have an excellent partner like SCT. Together, we have identified drug candidates at an unprecedented speed for an unmet medical need in cancer treatment," said Pek Lum, founder and CEO of CapellaBio. "These promising drug candidates demonstrate strong biological profiles and signatures. Our work in validating these candidates in human-derived stem cells models confirms that these compounds are extremely promising leads."

"Cardiovascular disease caused by cancer therapies is a significant and growing clinical problem," said Dr. Robert C. Robbins, President and CEO, Texas Medical Center. "Cardio-Oncology programs like this, that focus on developing therapies to prevent heart damage caused by chemotherapy, are essential to not only improve the quality of life of cancer survivors, but to also reduce the economic burden on the healthcare system."

About Stem Cell Theranostics Inc
Stem Cell Theranostics is a discovery stage biotechnology company focused on developing therapies for genetic and drug-induced heart disease. Through our exclusive partnership with Stanford University Cardiovascular Institute, we have developed a powerful discovery platform that focuses on the generation and use of stem cell-derived, patient-specific cardiac models in drug screening and therapeutic development.

About CapellaBio
CapellaBio is a Silicon Valley based computational pharmaceutical company. CapellaBio applies novel data analysis techniques and algorithms to every step of the drug discovery and development pipeline to identify compounds, markers and new targets for specific patient populations. At the heart of CapellaBio's analysis pipeline is the SMarTR engine, a proprietary, highly automated and scalable computational platform that characterizes disease heterogeneity and identifies compounds that will be effective for specific patient sub-populations.

SOURCE Stem Cell Theranostics Inc

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