Immune Control was formed in 2001 based on technology developed by Bradford Jameson, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry at Drexel University College of Medicine. Initial funding came from Argil Management, LLC, of Boston. In 2003, Stephen Roth, Ph.D., became president and CEO of Immune Control.

The company is currently conducting two Phase 1 clinical trials in patients with multiple myeloma and psoriasis to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a serotonin antagonist that is approved and marketed for another indication. If the drug demonstrates clinical efficacy against the malignant B cells characteristic of multiple myeloma, or in clearing psoriatic plaques, we plan to pursue larger Phase 2 or 3 trials. Positive results in either Phase 1 trial would constitute clinical proof-of-concept for the company's basic premise that serotonin antagonists have clinical utility against inappropriately activated immune cells.

We plan to develop proprietary serotonin antagonists that are more potent than those currently approved and that do not cross the blood-brain barrier to cause adverse neurological side-effects. We have screened new chemical entities for their abilities to bind to specific immunological serotonin receptors and kill activated lymphocytes and are testing these compounds in vivo in various disease models.

Ultimately, we hope to find compounds that can be used to treat hematologic cancers, transplant rejection, and diseases caused by inappropriate lymphocyte activation, such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, asthma, transplant rejection, and many muscular dystrophies. The market for drugs that treat each of these conditions exceeds $1 billion annually.

The company has licensed patent applications from Drexel University covering novel compounds and uses of serotonin antagonists and their receptors.