Company: ClotProtect Therapeutics Limited
Location: Leeds, West Yorkshire
Founded: 2024
Founder: Professor Helen Philippou
Written by: Shubhi Raghav
Edited by: Natasha Barrow & Caroline Babisz
The leading cause of death post major trauma is blood loss and the complications it causes. Over 4.4 million injury-related deaths occur annually, half of which are due to patients experiencing uncontrollable blood loss. If patients survive major trauma, outcomes can be life altering. Such is the case for women suffering from postpartum haemorrhage, which affects 14 million mothers every year. Complications due to blood loss can leave many patients with lifelong reproductive disability.
The body has natural mechanisms through which it protects the loss of blood in case of an injury. Simply put, the body patches any leak through clots which are formed by the protein fibrin. In the case of major trauma, clotting becomes dysregulated due to the production of the enzyme plasmin which is responsible for breaking down fibrin to dissolve clots. In cases of haemorrhage overproduction of plasmin breaks down blood clots faster than they can form. Consequently, insufficient clotting leads to uncontrollable blood loss.
The current standard of care involves using a competitive inhibitor of plasminogen, called tranexamic acid, to protect clots. It is the only anti-fibrinolytic drug available which helps clotting by reducing the amount of plasmin produced. While this biological agent is effective to some extent, it doesn't directly target plasmin. Plasmin is generated through three mechanisms, tranexamic acid disrupts one of these which means plasmin is still being produced through the other two.
ClotProtect aims to develop a small molecule therapeutic that targets plasmin itself thus blocking the activity of plasmin in the body regardless of the mechanism by which it was generated. As their therapeutic approach would target plasmin, the end molecule, directly, it's expected to have better efficacy than tranexamic acid, which would improve the standard of care for patients. Another aim of ClotProtect, in addition to developing an intravenously (I.V) administered agent, is to provide an agent that can be administered as an intramuscular device such as an EpiPen, for immediate effect which would have faster efficacy than tranexamic acid in trauma where it is delivered I.V. This would give the final product applications in ambulances and the military.
The founder of ClotProtect, Professor Helen Philippou has been studying blood clotting as an academic for over 32 years. During her time at University at Leeds, she decided to pursue opportunities that would allow her research to have a greater positive impact on patients. Her passion led her to co-found the first spin-out therapeutic company from the University of Leeds, LUNAC Therapeutics to develop first-in-class anticoagulation therapies. Separately, Professor Philippou identified the unmet need for a more effective anti-fibrinolytic which could save lives compared to the standard of care, by protecting blood clots from being broken down in trauma or surgical situations. Her research was vital in securing proof of concept funding for ClotProtect which was the first step towards establishing this startup. She focused on putting together the best team possible to ensure success for the drug discovery project. After securing pre-seed funding, the startup has been able to begin experimental work as well as recruit a highly experienced management team. Her experiences setting up the first company gave her insights to be cost and time effective.
ClotProtect is making progress on various fronts such as progressing the chemistry and biology screening and generating comparator data compared to standard-of-care. It aims to secure 10 million in funding to achieve its aims towards being ready for first-in-man studies. In line with this, Professor Philippou has been proactive with engaging in many networking events such as the Innovators Club accelerator programme and appreciated the chance to engage with like-minded founders.
Long-term, ClotProtect's aim is to conduct clinical studies which showcases the efficacy of the product and how it has the potential to better protect clots. Lastly, they intend to partner with a large pharmaceutical company to launch the product and consequently improve patient care.
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