00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello, I'm Eric Curtis,
00:03 Chief Operating Officer at Wintry Therapeutics.
00:06 Wintry is a biotechnology company
00:08 focused upon late stage interventions
00:11 in cardiovascular disease
00:13 for patients in their moment of crisis.
00:15 And our NASDAQ symbol is W-I-N-T.
00:18 And we have a franchise of drug candidates
00:21 focused upon something called CERCA 2A activation.
00:25 Now what is CERCA 2A and why is it important?
00:28 Well, CERCA 2A is a drug development target
00:30 and it's involved in the regulation of the relaxation
00:35 and the contraction of the heart.
00:38 And when you get these two functions
00:40 working together properly,
00:42 you can get improvement in pump function.
00:45 And that's important in a disease state
00:47 called heart failure.
00:48 And so at Wintry, we're very interested in heart failure
00:51 and simply defined heart failure means
00:53 that the blood is not being pumped properly by the heart
00:56 in order to have the body function the way that it needs to.
01:00 And so when you think about heart failure,
01:02 many of you may have had perhaps a grandparent
01:04 or an older relative that had heart failure.
01:07 It's very common throughout the world.
01:09 There are millions of patients that have heart failure.
01:12 And as you think about the way
01:15 that the heart failure progresses,
01:17 sometimes it can become acute.
01:20 And that means that the patient's symptoms
01:22 have become so bad that they need to be treated
01:25 at the hospital, oftentimes rushed to the hospital
01:28 because when fluid builds up in the lungs,
01:31 because there's not good blood flow and functional heart
01:33 having an effective way that pumps blood,
01:36 this fluid can build up in the lungs
01:38 and it causes a very difficult way to breathe.
01:41 So patients get rushed to the hospital
01:43 and it's an urgent situation, it's an acute heart failure.
01:46 And what we see here with our drug candidates
01:49 is great potential to treat acute heart failure.
01:51 I'm gonna tell you about our two classes
01:54 of drug candidates now.
01:56 And the first one is,
01:58 the whole entire class is called circuit to a activators.
02:01 And the first class of those circuit to activators
02:03 is called the dual mechanism circuit to a activators.
02:07 And those two mechanisms of action are,
02:09 the first one is that the drug candidate
02:12 works upon the strength of the contraction
02:15 or the beating of the heart to strengthen that,
02:17 which is very useful when you have heart failure
02:19 because your blood's not pumping effectively.
02:22 And the second mechanism, which is very crucial,
02:25 is the circuit to a targeting.
02:27 And in this situation, what it does is it,
02:30 the circuit to a relaxes the ventricles of the heart
02:34 or the filling chambers of the heart.
02:36 So that in between heartbeats,
02:38 they can more completely fill with blood.
02:40 And so when the strength of the contraction comes
02:42 and you have a full ventricle,
02:44 this is a way that a optimal heart can function
02:47 and pump function improves,
02:48 thereby helping to improve a heart failure itself.
02:52 And so we have this dual mechanism at work
02:55 and with a circuit to activator.
02:57 And what we envision for the development plan
03:01 is for the inpatient or the acute heart failure patient
03:06 to be treated with an intravenous or an IV formulation
03:10 of the dual mechanism circuit to a activator.
03:13 And when they become stable
03:14 over the course of some period of time,
03:17 number of hours, or perhaps a couple of days,
03:19 they become stable
03:20 in the inpatient hospitalized environment.
03:23 And then they become ready a couple of days after that
03:26 to be discharged from the hospital.
03:28 They could be discharged on a chronic oral formulation
03:32 of the dual mechanism circuit to a activator as well.
03:35 And this would help to keep them out of the hospital
03:37 returning back to the hospital over time.
03:39 So we think there's a very nice development
03:42 and opportunity here
03:44 for the dual mechanism circuit to a activators
03:46 to be utilized.
03:48 Now here's where the story
03:50 becomes even more interesting though,
03:51 because we have a lead candidate here,
03:55 drug candidate at Wintry called Istiroxime.
03:59 I'll call it ISTA for short.
04:00 ISTA has been through three successful,
04:03 positive phase two clinical trials,
04:07 two in acute heart failure
04:08 and one in something called cardiogenic shock,
04:11 which is just a more severe presentation of heart failure.
04:15 Now ISTA has very similar mechanisms of action
04:20 to the dual mechanism circuit to a activators.
04:23 And so why that's so intriguing
04:25 is because one can view
04:28 the dual mechanism circuit to a activators
04:30 as a potential fast follow on to Istiroxime.
04:35 So what that means is,
04:37 if Istiroxime becomes an approved drug
04:40 through the course of its drug development
04:41 and success, what becomes approved,
04:44 that the dual mechanism circuit to activators
04:46 could learn from those experiences with Istiroxime,
04:51 undergo the same similar type clinical trials,
04:54 but quicker and faster and potentially less expensive
04:58 because of the learnings
04:59 and move through those clinical trials
05:01 to a way to be able to replace Istiroxime eventually.
05:05 And again, with even a more fresh patent life,
05:08 intellectual property life behind it.
05:11 So this could be a very attractive way to think about
05:14 a portfolio of products that we have.
05:17 And so now that I've mentioned intellectual property,
05:20 let me update you on the dual mechanism
05:22 of circuit to activators on that.
05:23 The composition of matter patent
05:25 has been granted by the European Union,
05:28 and there's a notice of allowance from the USPTO
05:31 on its composition of matter as well.
05:33 So very good news there,
05:35 and we'll continue to keep you updated on that.
05:37 Now let me transition to the second family
05:40 or second group of circuit to activators
05:42 we have at Wintry.
05:43 They're called the pure circuit to activators.
05:46 Well, these have a single mechanism of action,
05:49 and it's the circuit to a activator target
05:52 that I was mentioning,
05:52 similar to what I was mentioning before
05:54 with the dual mechanism.
05:56 It's that targeting of the ventricles of the heart
05:59 for the relaxation to more completely fill with blood
06:02 so you get a better, more efficient working heart.
06:05 This time in chronic heart failure,
06:07 this would be the target.
06:09 And so in chronic heart failure,
06:11 there is a type of disease
06:15 called heart failure with preserved ejection fraction,
06:18 which is very much underserved.
06:21 And this would be the target
06:22 for the pure circuit to activators in development.
06:25 And the reason why it's underserved
06:28 is there just hasn't been any new drugs
06:30 that have been successfully developed here
06:31 in many, many years.
06:33 And even though it's a big portion,
06:35 a big percentage of the heart failure population,
06:37 just hasn't seen innovation.
06:39 But we think that pure circuit to a's
06:41 could really make a difference here.
06:43 So that'll be one of the areas of focus that we have.
06:46 And on the intellectual property side
06:48 with the pure circuit to a activators,
06:50 all the composition matter patents have been filed
06:52 with the regulatory authorities around the world.
06:55 And that process is ongoing.
06:57 So we'll keep you updated there.
06:58 You can go to our website to get more information,
07:01 www.WintreeTX.com
07:05 and view our public filings there as well.
07:07 Been great speaking to you.
07:08 Thank you.
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