At the Dutch Life Sciences conference, Marc van Moorsel MSc., co-founder of IOVA pitched their business plan to a group of life science investors. Among the nine candidates, IOVA was chosen by the jury as the winner of the Investors Forum 2018.
IOVA is founded in September 2018 and is currently developing one pharmaceutical product: MICROLYSE. MICROLYSE allows for the enzymatic breakdown of blood clots in smaller vessels (microvasculature), for which to date, no treatment exists. For MICROLYSE, IOVA pursues to receive market authorization for an orphan disease that is characterized by life threatening attacks of microvascular thrombosis. IOVA filed patent on the platform underlying MICROLYSE (P6074456EP).
Technology
The formation and degradation of microthrombi is a dynamic process, involving the adherence of platelets to VWF. MICROLYSE is a recombinant fusion protein comprised of two functional subunits: (1) a small antibody (i.e. ‘nanobody’) that targets the components of the microthrombus, and (2) an enzyme that actively cleaves existing microthrombi into harmless monomers.
Products
MICROLYSE is developed as an orphan drug for a disastrous disease that is characterized by the presence of microvascular thrombi. Subsequently, IOVA will aim to expand to other diseases that include microvascular thrombosis. Meanwhile, IOVA investigates the applicability of its platform for diagnostic purposes. By coupling their nanobodies to imaging enhancers, IOVA believes to enable visualization of microthrombi. This project is named MICROVIEW.