ICBII UPDATE ON THE ROAD TO THE CURE (May 2022)

Solving the Blood-Brain Barrier Conundrum in CNS Drug Development

Last month’s editorial remarks by Jo Rosen being reprinted: in 1998 I was told by Robert W. Rand, M.D., a nationally and internationally known neurosurgeon and Professor of Neurosurgery at UCLA, and in 2003 I was told by Professor of Neuroscience, and Professor of Neurosurgery and  neurology at the University of Kentucky, Greater Lexington, Dr. Greg Gerhardt that chances are we would never find a cure for Parkinson’s or other neurological disorders unless and until we could permeate the Blood-Brain-Barrier. 

Now read this…

Last month we shared with our readers that the blood-brain barrier (BBB) has posed a unique challenge for centuries for the delivery of pharmaceutical drugs to the central nervous system (CNS), resulting in a colossal failure to develop curative therapies for most of the debilitating CNS diseases including Parkinson’s. Over the last several decades, scientists all over the world developed different methods to solve this problem but with dismal success. ICB International, Inc., (“ICBII”), a La Jolla, CA, based biopharmaceutical company decided early on not to do what most of the pharmaceutical companies have been following for decades and expect a better outcome.  The pharmaceutical world has been developing antibodies from mice with very poor brain uptake (~0.1%) and testing in healthy individuals and patients.  

Development of SMART Molecules – Realizing that for decades mouse antibodies have failed to cure or even halt the CNS disease progression, ICBII used a different approach. The Company opted to look outside of the box and decided to use different animals than mice to immunize and produce antibodies specific for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other CNS disease targets. Contrary to conventional mouse monoclonal antibodies that have heavy- and light-chains, ICBII decided to produce antibodies with heavy-chain only. Through some additional enzymatic and chemical modification, ICBII reduced the size of its antibodies to about 1/3rd the size of mouse antibodies. This new generation of antibodies was referred to as SMART Molecules (SMs), wherein SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific Molecular Architecture for Recognition and Therapy.  

Testing of SMART Molecules – To test and verify the BBB permeability SMART Molecules were handed over to a prominent UCSD professor who tested them in his laboratory in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s mouse models. Tail-vein injections of these antibodies at a very low dose demonstrated BBB permeability into the CNS of these animals where these antibodies bound very specifically to the intended target of amyloid-beta and aggregated alpha-synuclein, respectively. It took the Company four to five years to develop these new generation antibodies which amazingly produced beautiful results.  In side-by-side comparison the classical mouse antibodies did not show any BBB permeability in our hands.  The successful third-party proof-of principle with SMART Molecules embarked upon the start of a new era for ICBII in 2012/2013 when it started raising funds from Angel investors. Until that time, the Company was funded by the Founder.

Unfortunately, we cannot divulge our methods and protocols in this newsletter. Interested individuals are encouraged to visit ICBII where we will show the unique features of SMART Molecules such as:

-- 15% brain uptake in animals.

-- Dose dependent therapeutic effect of our drugs.

-- The ability to detect, diagnose, and quantitate the levels of errant proteins in the brain of animals.

-- Improvement in animals motor function.

-- Zero to minimal toxicity of our drugs.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO HELP get ICBII’s drugs to market faster? The joy of being a part of this historical event can be had by helping ICBI find the funds to bring these trials to fruition through your investing, and by finding others with the financial ability and humanitarian mindset to accomplish the, until now, impossible. Please contact ICBI directly through their website ICBII.com or by phone 858-455-9880.

IMAGINE the world without Parkinson’s, MSA, or Alzheimer’s disease.

JUST IMAGINE.