BioCentury
ARTICLE | Targets & Mechanisms

Forty Seven and counting

Stanford and Forty Seven Inc. count up new indications for CD47 blockade

August 25, 2016 7:00 AM UTC

With companies lining up to block CD47 for cancer, the cell surface protein is emerging as one of the top new targets in oncology. But the list of suitors could be about to get a lot longer as the target could have uses in a much broader range of indications, according to two studies from Stanford University that extend its prospects to cardiovascular disease and transplant biology, and hint at roles in several more diseases.

The discoveries have been licensed by Forty Seven Inc. as part of the 100-plus patent portfolio licensed from the university when the company was spun out by Stanford professor Irving Weissman to develop inhibitors of CD47 for cancer. The company raised $75 million in series A financing in February, and has its lead compound, the CD47-blocking mAb Hu5F9-G4, in Phase I for acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and solid tumors. ...