SFA Therapeutics

Dr. Feitelson has been working in liver disease for over 35 years. He trained at UCLA Geffen Medical School and was invited to work with Dr. Baruch Blumberg at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia as a postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Blumberg discovered Hepatitis B and developed the first vaccine for it, and received the Nobel Prize for this work in 1976. Dr. Feitelson has continued this work, first at Fox Chase, then at Jefferson University Medical School, and then came to Temple University 13 years ago. He has been working out the pathogenesis and mechanisms of liver cancer for over 30 years, which led to the discoveries upon which SFA is based.

Dr. Arzumanyan was invited to the US 16 years ago to test medicinal compounds that she was researching for their potential use in treating HIV and cancer. She has been working with Dr. Feitelson as a collaborator in his laboratory for over 14 years.

Dr. Feitelson first postulated the experiments that led to SFA over 5 years ago. Dr. Arzumanyan extended the animal work in liver disease to psoriasis in humans and ran the proof-of-concept trial in humans in psoriasis 5 years ago.

Dr. Spector reviewed their data 5 years ago and realized the applicability of these agents and mechanisms to a wider range of diseases. He has been working full time on this since 2017, while Drs. Feitelson and Arzumanyan have been spending approximately 50% of their time on this research.

We incorporated in late 2016, so together as a team we have been working on this for over 4 years.

SFA Therapeutics, Inc is a biotech with a novel immunomodulatory platform that is focused on the intersection of NF-kB and Ras in the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases and oncogenesis (the onset of cancer), respectively.

Our vision is to change the practice of Medicine by treating chronic inflammatory conditions that result in cancer, such as hepatitis, which progresses to liver cancer, and pancreatitis, which progresses to pancreatic cancer, by blocking the primary inflammatory pathways with our discoveries..

SFA is developing small molecule drugs originally derived from human GI bacterial metabolites, which have been shown to modulate the immune system through a complex cascade that affects several important molecular pathways, ultimately downregulating NF-kB and RAS, which control involved in inflammation and carcinogenesis. This platform has led to the development of six drugs to treat immuno-inflammatory diseases, using psoriasis as a proof-of concept for autoimmune diseases and chronic liver diseases that are caused by inflammation, including Hepatitis B virus-mediated chronic liver disease, NASH and Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC), the most common form of liver cancer. SFA’s two most advanced assets are SFA001 and SFA002, for liver disease and autoimmune diseases, respectively. SFA002 has an approved IND and is ready to enter into clinical trials in patients.

Our plan is to develop these drugs through phase 2 and create phase 3-ready assets, to license to pharma and biotech partners, in exchange for license fees, royalties and milestone payments.