Santersus has released an abstract at the International Society for Apheresis meeting (ISFA), which is being held virtually this year. The poster presentation entitled “Therapeutic Removal of NETs from Blood in a Pig Model of Sepsis” was given by Dr. Andrew Aswani, the Chief Medical Officer of Santersus AG. Data clearly showed that the application of Santersus’ highly selective therapeutic apheresis technology was able to remove circulating Neutrophil Extracellular Traps (NETs) in a randomised, sham-controlled study. Furthermore, the animals subjected to NucleoCapture treatment exhibited markedly improved physiological status such as improved blood pressure and urine output as well as improved survival. Dr Aswani: “This key study highlights the powerful efficacy of NucleoCapture as a novel, first-in-class technology to deplete circulating NETs, which are present in all inflammatory diseases. The potential of NucleoCapture to treat sepsis and other conditions is extraordinary.”
Volition’s Nu.Q nucleosome assay was used to measure NETs and proved to be a very effective method for monitoring NucleoCapture treatment targeting NETs in this sepsis study. Dr. Jake Micallef, Volition’s Chief Scientific Officer added, “Santersus’ highly selective therapeutic apheresis treatment is demonstrably effective in the removal of up to 99% of circulating NETs from animals in septic shock as measured by our Nu.Q NETs assay”.
About the Study
NETs are made of nucleosomes and are associated with sepsis. Santersus investigated the removal of NETs from the circulation of a pig model of sepsis using the Santersus NucleoCapture therapeutic plasmapheresis method and monitored the therapy using Volition’s 45-minute, automated Nu.Q immunoassay as a surrogate measure for circulating NET levels.
NucleoCapture-treated and sham-treated animals were monitored by a variety of physiological and biochemical parameters including lactate levels (an indicator of sepsis severity), vasopressor requirements (septic shock leads to low blood pressure which is ameliorated by treatment with vasopressors) and urine output (urine output falls during septic shock).
Nu.Q immunoassays successfully monitored the rise in NETs caused by sepsis. They also demonstrated that the plasmapheresis treatment removed almost all (up to 99%) of nucleosomes from treated blood and that untreated sepsis led to a high and continuously rising level of circulating NETs. Finally, Santersus also demonstrated that the NucleoCapture treatment successfully prevented this rise in NETs leading to a lower and stable level of circulating NETs.