ISM Therapeutics
is discovering and developing an entirely new class of therapeutics based on the study of inositol signaling molecules (ISMs) and their role in regulating cellular functions.
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ISM Therapeutics

ProdrugPro-drug Approach :
ISM Therapeutics starts with a compound that cannot enter the cell and using medicinal chemistry conceals components of the molecule,  such as the charged phosphate groups, allowing the drug to pass through the membrane of the cell.  Once inside the cell, endogenous enzymes, such as esterases, remove the concealing moieties releasing the active drug which then  corrects the biological defect.

ISM Therapeutics’s platform is based on leveraging the role of ISMs in physiological and pathophysiological functions by designing, synthesizing, and developing cell permeable forms of ISMs as therapeutics for a number of disease applications.
 
The goal of genomics and proteomics is to predict how cells will behave under various circumstances to devise better ways to therapeutically modulate that behavior.  The information in the genome, or even the proteome, taken by itself, is not sufficient to adequately predict behavior.  Studying the genome to deduce information about the whole organism is a “bottom up” approach.  With the added information obtained through proteomics, we are closer to being able to predict behavior, but still lacking in the total picture.  Many pharmaceutical companies are trying to link these data pieces to function.   In the process, they are identifying regulatory receptors and substrates that may prove to be valid drug targets for screening efforts utilizing large diverse compound libraries.  This effort is proving to be cost intensive and time consuming.

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Text Box: learn more about ISM NomenclatureISMs supply the missing link and help complete the picture.  ISM-based drug discovery provides the molecules important to the cell and used by the cell to direct its own activities.  ISM Therapeutics starts with biologically active molecules in its compound library.  This strategy circumvents the tedious screening of random compounds against single targets to find active compounds. As a result, the approach offers specificity, selectivity and considerable time saving in screening and drug development efforts.  In some respects, ISM-based molecules are the molecules that the cell itself would use to repair itself and hence should yield the relevant active clinical medicines. ISM Therapeutics exploits the chemical backbone of relevant ISMs by designing chemical analogs of the molecules.   Cell permeable forms of these molecules are then designed, synthesized, screened and delivered to treat specific diseases.

"A Novel Approach"