What is gamma secretase?

What is Gamma-Secretase? So let's talk a little bit about Gamma-Secretase and Gamma-Secretase inhibitors. So we all have seen a series of treatments that are aimed at the BCMA, at the B-cell maturation antigen. And the B-cell maturation antigen is present on the plasma cells and therefore also on the myeloma cells, is in the surface of the cell. But naturally what happens in the body is that protein does not sit on the cell. It sits on the cell transiently and then it gets broken off by this enzyme called Gamma-Secretase. So that causes the BCMA to leave the plasma cells and go into the bloodstream, becomes a soluble BCMA. So if you want to target the BCMA for therapy, you don't want the BCMA in the blood. You want the BCMA to stay in the plasma cell so you can have more of the targets to hit. And the way to do that is by using different drugs that you take by mouth that inhibit the activity of the Gamma-Secretase. If that enzyme is not working, it does not bring, it's not breaking out the BCMA. The BCMA stays on the plasma cell where you want it to be so you can target with your treatment instead of going to the bloodstream. So it has been shown very elegantly that those drugs work. And they do increase the BCMA in the plasma cells. What has not yet been shown is if that really changes the efficacy and the safety of those therapies. You know, one can argue, you know, CAR T cell works so well already, now it's going to be hard to show it works much better on doing so. But there's certainly one of the many ways people are pursuing improving the efficacy of CAR T cell or T cell engagers or even antibody drug conjugate directed against BCMA. So BCMA is basically a protein that's found on the surface of myeloma cells. It's a really good target. And we have several new treatment options, including an antibody drug conjugate called Blendwrap, two CAR T cell therapies that are FDA approved, Abekma and Carvixi, and possibly several new class of drugs called antibody T cell engagers. A gamma secretase inhibitor is a protein that's found in plasma cells. And what it does is it helps the plasma cell get rid of BCMA. And what we have found is that if we target the gamma secretase, we can increase by using a gamma secretase inhibitor, we can increase the expression of BCMA and thereby increase the efficacy of the several agents that I have talked about, including Blendwrap, Abekma, Carvixi.