Oxford BioDynamics and King's
College London collaborate to develop EpiSwitch® prognostic and
predictive biomarkers for best prevention of rheumatoid arthritis
following the APIPPRA trial.
· APIPPRA trial is the largest rheumatoid arthritis (RA)
prevention trial to date, led by Professor Andy Cope, King's
College London
· Data
published in The Lancet in
February 2024, showed that 92.8% of patients at risk of RA, when
treated with Abatacept, remained RA-free at the end of the one year
of treatment
· 25% of treated patients who initially showed response
subsequently developed RA
· Highlights the need for improved stratification tools to
identify individuals at high risk of RA, with predicted
efficacious response to Abatacept
· Professor Cope and his team at King's College London, are now
collaborating with Oxford BioDynamics, to develop prognostic and
predictive blood-based EpiSwitch® biomarkers to identify patients
at risk of RA who can benefit from Abatacept treatment
Oxford, UK - 16 May 2024 - Oxford BioDynamics, Plc (AIM: OBD,
"OBD" or the "Company" and, together with its subsidiaries, the
"Group"), a biotechnology company developing precision medicine
tests based on the EpiSwitch® 3D genomics platform, today announced
it is collaborating with the King's College London team in the
immediate follow up of the APIPPRA trial, the largest RA
prevention trial to date.
The APIPPRA trial of Abatacept was a
multicentre trial in 213 individuals at high risk of rheumatoid
arthritis. Break-through results of the trial were recently
published in The Lancet in
February 2024 [1] and covered in the mainstream media (links
here and
here). Prof Andrew Cope, who led the research,
commented: "The APIPPRA
trial is the largest rheumatoid arthritis prevention trial to date,
and the first to show a treatment effective in preventing the onset
of disease in people at risk."
In the immediate follow-up of the
successful trial, The King's College London team has now engaged
OBD's EpiSwitch® technology, which
has already delivered successful results on prognosis of disease
and prediction of response to treatment [2,3], to identify which patients are at the highest risk of
progressing to RA and are likely to benefit from the therapeutic
intervention with Abatacept, in both the short and long
term.
While 92.8% of those treated with
Abtacept were RA-free at the end of year 1, about 25% of this group
ultimately progressed to rheumatoid arthritis by the end of the
second year after stopping treatment. This highlights the
importance of an accurate risk assessment and the need for improved
stratification tools to identify those individuals who will have
the benefit of a durable, efficacious response - a task well-suited
to EpiSwitch® biomarkers developed by OBD.
Professor Andrew Cope, King's College London
said: "There are currently no drugs available that
prevent this potentially crippling disease. The initial results
from the APIPPRA trial could be good news for people at risk of
arthritis. We are excited about our collaboration with Oxford
Biodynamics and the early results in helping us identify patients
at highest risk and how to reduce it. EpiSwitch® technology is
delivering biomarkers of high biological
relevance."
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a
common chronic inflammatory immune-mediated disease of joints,
afflicting more than 500,000 in the UK [4,5] and another 1.5M in
the US [6]. If not adequately treated, the condition leads to
destruction of synovial joints and significant disability. RA is
costly to individuals and their families; one third of patients
with arthritis stop work within two years of onset because of the
deterioration in quality of life associated with their disease [7].
In the UK, RA costs are estimated to be in the region of £5 billion
per year through direct costs to the National Health Service (NHS)
and associated healthcare providers and indirect costs associated
with early mortality and loss of productivity [8].
Abatacept is a biological
disease-modifying antirheumatic drug recommended for the treatment
of rheumatoid arthritis. Abatacept has shown efficacy in the
treatment of active rheumatoid arthritis when used as monotherapy
or in combination with conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic
drugs in patients with an inadequate response to other conventional
or biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs [1].
Dr
Alexandre Akoulitchev, CSO at OBD, said: "With fast adoption of
EpiSwitch® 3D genomic biomarkers across many fields, our
collaboration with Professor Cope is of particular
importance. The value delivered by our proven biomarker
technology in the field of prognostic and predictive biomarkers in
oncology, should and would be matched by applications in rheumatoid
arthritis. Treatment of autoimmune conditions could greatly benefit
from the accuracy and robustness of blood-based EpiSwitch®
readouts. With regards to delivering benefits to patients and
health system economics, there is no time to
lose."
References
1. Cope AP et al.
Abatacept in individuals at high risk of
rheumatoid arthritis (APIPPRA): a randomised, double-blind,
multicentre, parallel, placebo-controlled, phase 2b clinical trial.
Lancet. 2024. PMID: 38364839
2. Hunter E et al., Development and
Validation of Blood-Based Predictive Biomarkers for Response to
PD-1/PD-L1 Checkpoint Inhibitors: Evidence of a Universal Systemic
Core of 3D Immunogenetic Profiling across Multiple Oncological
Indications. Cancers (Basel). 2023 May 10;15(10):2696. doi:
10.3390/cancers15102696.
3. Carini C et al. Chromosome
conformation signatures define predictive markers of inadequate
response to methotrexate in early rheumatoid arthritis. J Transl
Med. 2018 Jan 29;16(1):18. doi:
10.1186/s12967-018-1387-9.
4. Scott DL, Wolfe F, Huizinga TWJ.
Rheumatoid arthritis. Lancet. 2010;376: 1094-108.
5. Hochberg MC, Spector TD.
Epidemiology of rheumatoid arthritis: update. Baillieres Clin
Rheumatol. 1995;9:619-32.
6.
Rheumatoid Arthritis by the Numbers: Facts, Statistics, and You
(healthline.com)
7. Wolfe F, Hawley DJ. The longterm
outcomes of rheumatoid arthritis: Work disability: a prospective 18
year study of 823 patients. J Rheumatol. 1998;25:
2108-17.
8. Michaud K, Messer J, Choi HK,
Wolfe F. Direct medical costs and their predictors in patients with
rheumatoid arthritis: a three-year study of 7,527 patients.
Arthritis Rheum. 2003;48:2750-62.
-Ends-
For further details please
contact:
|
|
Oxford BioDynamics Plc
Jon Burrows, CEO
Paul Stockdale, CFO
|
+44
(0)1865 518910
|
Shore Capital
Nominated Adviser and
Broker
Advisory:
Stephane Auton / Lucy Bowden
Broking:
Fiona Conroy
|
+44 (0)20
7408 4090
|
Instinctif Partners
Melanie Toyne-Sewell / Katie
Duffell
|
+44
(0)20 7457 2020
OxfordBioDynamics@instinctif.com
|
Notes to Editors
About Oxford BioDynamics
Plc
Oxford BioDynamics Plc (AIM: OBD) is
a global biotechnology company, advancing personalized healthcare
by developing and commercializing precision medicine tests for
life-changing diseases.
Its flagship products are
the EpiSwitch®
CiRT (Checkpoint Inhibitor Response Test) and EpiSwitch®
PSE (EpiSwitch Prostate Screening test) blood tests. CiRT is a
predictive immune response profile for immuno-oncology (IO)
checkpoint inhibitor treatments, launched in February 2022. PSE is
a blood test that boosts the predictive accuracy of a PSA test from
55% to 94% when testing the presence or absence of prostate cancer,
which has been launched in the US and UK in September 2023.
In March 2021, the Company launched
its first commercial prognostic test, EpiSwitch®
CST (Covid Severity Test) and the first commercially available
microarray kit for high-resolution 3D genome profiling and
biomarker discovery, EpiSwitch®
Explorer Array Kit, which is
available for purchase by the life science research
community.
The Company's product portfolio is
based on a proprietary 3D genomic biomarker platform, EpiSwitch®,
which can build molecular diagnostic classifiers for the prediction
of response to therapy, patient prognosis, disease diagnosis and
subtyping, and residual disease monitoring in a wide range of
indications.
Oxford BioDynamics has participated
in more than 40 partnerships with big pharma and leading
institutions including Pfizer, EMD Serono, Genentech, Roche,
Biogen, Mayo Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital and Mitsubishi
Tanabe Pharma.
The Company has created a valuable
technology portfolio, including biomarker arrays, molecular
diagnostic tests, bioinformatic tools for 3D genomics and an
expertly curated 3D genome knowledgebase comprising hundreds of
millions of data points from over 15,000 samples in more than 30
human diseases.
OBD is headquartered
in Oxford,
UK and is
listed on AIM of the London Stock Exchange. It also has a
commercial office in Gaithersburg and a clinical laboratory
in Frederick,
MD, USA, and a reference laboratory in Penang, Malaysia.
For more information, please visit
the Company's website, www.oxfordbiodynamics.com,
or follow OBD on Twitter(@OxBioDynamics)
and LinkedIn.
About EpiSwitch®
The 3D configuration of the genome
plays a crucial role in gene regulation. By mapping this
architecture and identifying abnormal configurations, EpiSwitch®
can be used to diagnose patients or determine how individuals might
respond to a disease or treatment.
Built on over 10 years of research,
EpiSwitch® is Oxford Biodynamics' award-winning, proprietary
platform that enables screening, evaluation, validation and
monitoring of 3D genomic biomarkers. The technology is fully
developed, based on testing of over 15,000 samples in 30 disease
areas, and reduced to practice.
In addition to stratifying patients
with respect to anticipated clinical outcomes, EpiSwitch® data
offer insights into systems biology and the physiological
manifestation of disease that are beyond the scope of other
molecular modalities. The technology has performed well in academic
medical research settings and has been validated through its
integration in biomarker discovery and clinical development with
big pharma.