Others before Samumed have tried to drug the Wnt pathway, but found out, in Kibar’s words, that “safety and efficacy were mutually exclusive.” So why does Samumed think it will succeed where others have failed?
One word: targets.
Targeting Wnt can be tricky, Kibar said, “because Wnt receptors have multiple purposes and the Wnt pathway is diverse enough, rich enough, that it always finds a way to bypass your drug intervention, which makes the efficacy go down.”
What’s more, hitting Wnt receptors hard can backfire. A drug may have its intended effect, but it may disrupt other processes, leading to side effects and safety concerns. So, instead of aiming at Wnt receptors on the cell membrane, Samumed’s drugs target CLK and DYRK, kinase enzymes that are upstream of the Wnt pathway.
“Our approach to drugging the Wnt pathway is as natural as it gets because we are not fighting the body’s own machinery or telling it to do something it wasn’t doing anyway,” Kibar said. “Instead, once we bring a certain signaling level back into balance, the progenitor stem cells and all the associated biological processes, they kick into autopilot and then the body knows exactly how to restore health.”
“Because we’re not going against the current but rather working with the body’s own machinery, both the hardware and the software, we are able to achieve such safety,” he said.
Founded in 2008, Samumed has spent most of its lifetime working under the radar. | Samumed CEO Osman Kibar discusses regenerative medicine, drugging the Wnt pathway and his company's unorthodox journey.
www.fiercebiotech.com
