Empowered Patient Podcast Tackling Rare Autoimmune Diseases with Novel Bispecific Antibodies with Kiran Nistala Zura Bio
Kiran Nistala, Chief Medical Officer and head of development at Zura Bio, describes how their novel molecules target multiple pathways to provide more effective treatments for patients with autoimmune diseases. This is particularly necessary for those with complex, heterogeneous manifestations not well addressed by current therapies. Zura Bio's novel molecules target rare diseases such as systemic sclerosis and hidradenitis suppurativa and show potential for use in combination with existing approaches.
Kiran, "Developing bispecifics is a known, but it's quite a technical skill, and I think there are lots of reasons—first, bioengineering to get the right molecule. Secondly, you must also know how to design studies to show that both sides are doing what you expect of that molecule. So both pathways are being affected. And I guess you must also choose the right disease where you think those pathways are super important. So, we've been incredibly thoughtful in our approach- we haven't just jumped in, and some of that time we've taken is really to speak to patients and physicians and learn and hopefully overcome some of the mistakes we've seen from other competitors."
"Your point about heterogeneity speaks to why we're stuck and don't have enough medicines that are changing the boundaries. If I give you a specific example, scleroderma, I talked a bit about it. One of the points is that there's no treatment for the whole of this disease -there's just treatment for the lung. And maybe the lungs are a bit simpler, but what you want to treat is every organ, the whole of disease. That issue is probably more varied between patients. The same is true for our second disease of interest: hidradenitis suppurativa. There's been some great progress, and molecules are out there now that are licensed to treat it. But unfortunately, the same thing occurs. So, more than half of patients in recent studies are still not getting good or very good responses. I think it's not just one thing, but heterogeneity certainly contributes to it."
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