Centrose discovered that CD38 forms a tight association with a pump that removes sodium and adds potassium to cells. Without this pump, cells cannot live. CD38 is the target for daratumumab, an approved antibody for the treatment of Multiple Myeloma. CD38 is involved in many aspects of cell growth and inflammation.
EDC8 combines Centrose's anti-CD38 antibody with a powerful drug to make an extremely potent drug that has shown strong activity at killing cancer cells expressing CD38. Centrose also found that on hard to treat leukemias like AML, combining EDC8 with ATRA leads to robust and specific cancer cell death. There are currently no antibody drug conjugates that target CD38 in development and so EDC8 may find multiple uses in helping patients with AML.