CMO Dr Pol Boudes on the innovation behind Galectin Therap

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Play, download and edit the free video CMO Dr Pol Boudes on the innovation behind Galectin Therapeutics NASH cirrhosis clinical trial.

Pol Boudes 0:08
I like to do things that have not been done before. And that's exactly what we are doing, and I like also to, to do things for patients so that you know we are kind of innovating. So I think it's very exciting, and then the science is exciting, and then the drug we are working with is, so we're trying to solve a problem that has never been solved before, and in that case it's a liver disease and it's cirrhosis, and it's been a neglected field for a long, long time, so it's kind of very nice to be able to try to change this situation.

So the mechanism of action is inhibiting a protein that is called galectin-3, but also it's targeting a cell that is a very important cell in cirrhosis which is called a macrophage. And what you have in cirrhosis, you have an invasion of the gland by macrophages. And macrophages are very interesting cells because they are quiescent, and then nothing really happens, but they are bystanders, if you want, and when you have some aggression, inflammatory aggression, which is the case in cirrhosis, they are activated, they become activated. And when they are activated, they do a lot of things. They secrete a lot of proteins, inflammatory proteins, but they also, it's like a garbage truck, the macrophage cleans a lot of things, but also destroys a lot of things.

So it becomes a central actor of the inflammation in cirrhosis, and inflammation in cirrhosis leads to fibrosis. And belapectin is very interesting because it not only inhibits galectin-3, which is made by macrophages, but it's also targeting macrophages. The macrophages, when they see the molecule, they're going to gulp it, and you go exactly where you need to go because you go to the macrophages, which are the cells that are creating the problem in cirrhosis. So it's very nice in a way, because you can spend a lot of time trying to develop drugs, but they don't go to the right place in the body. The drug works, it works very well in the cell line, but when you inject it or when you absorb it, it doesn't go where it needs to go.

So belapectin goes exactly where you need to send the drug, which is really very nice because you solve one of the key problem of drug development. And it's also very nice because by going to macrophages, you go to the target and you don't go other cells that are always very difficult in cirrhosis, which is called the hepatocytes, which are the main cells of the liver, and all the drugs are transformed by the hepatocytes.

I would say the mechanism of action, so it's inhibition of galectin-3, there is no other drug in NASH cirrhosis that is looking for this mechanism of action. There is huge amount of science around galectin-3 and its inhibition, whether it's in cancer or in cirrhosis. What I think is different and unique is what I was talking about, this targeting of the macrophage and the inhibition of galectin-3, because in cirrhosis, you have an invasion of the gland by macrophages, so I think that kind of unique.

What is your strategy for conducting the NAVIGATE Study?

Pol Boudes 3:54
So, it's a large study. Probably the biggest study ever done in cirrhotic patients. So we have to select patients, we don't want patients that are too advanced in their disease, because then these patients are, you know the solution for them to have a liver transplant. But we don't want people who are not advanced enough in their disease, so it's what we call compensated cirrhosis, that's the technical term. So we have to find these patients. There are different ways to diagnose this stage of cirrhosis. So we are mainly involved with hepatologists but also gastroenterologists, and we have clinical sites actually around the world.

So it's a global effort, and in this kind of situation I think there is a lot of explanation to do. We need people to understand. You know that when I say cirrhosis was a neglected field, it's real. I mean there's not a lot of clinical research done in cirrhotic patients, so we need to reactivate the interest of people for cirrhosis. And when you have something, a new drug, I think you capture the attention of physicians, so that's what we are doing. It's kind of the very nice part of my job also, because when I explain the program I think you feel that people are with you.

We will have something like 160 locations around the world. At the moment we are approaching 100 sites that are active and looking for patients and enrolling patients....

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