BEAT BioTherapeutics Corp. (BEATBio) had been developing and had licensed from the University of Washington a novel biological therapy - BB-R12 - haing the potential to revolutionize the treatment of heart failure - a large and growing epidemic. The firm's founders had made the fundamental discovery that deoxy-ATP (dATP), a natural variant of the more prevalent ATP, and a building block for DNA is a superior fuel for heart muscle contraction. The firm's cardiac gene therapy, BB-R12, used an AAV viral vector (AAV6) to deliver a gene that increases the production of dATP in the heart. dATP triggers enhanced myosin filament cross-bridge formation causing the heart to beat more powerfully and pump blood more efficiently. More oxygenated blood is supplied to distal organs and tissues correcting the primary disease effects of heart failure. Simple delivery of BB-R12 to the heart through a standard catheter allows it to move through the arterial walls to deliver its transgene directly to heart muscle cells. Once the transgene enters the cardiac muscle cells it produces a natural protein enzyme that converts small amounts of ATP to dATP. Cell-to-cell diffusion of dATP to adjacent heart muscle cells occurs via gap junctions, so only a minority of factory cells needs to express and export the enzyme to produce increased overall cardiac performance. The companys advisory teams are recognized experts in cardiovascular biology, cardiovascular medicine, heart failure and gene therapy technology. The underpinning technology for the firm's latets work was developed using $50MM in NIH funding over the past 15 years and BEATBio has an exclusive, worldwide license.
