Kiadis Pharma announces initiation of a Phase I/II clinical trial with ATIR201™ for thalassemia
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, December 15, 2016, – Kiadis Pharma N.V. (“Kiadis Pharma” or the “Company”) (Euronext Amsterdam and Brussels: KDS), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative T-cell immunotherapy treatments for blood cancers and inherited blood disorders, today announces that it has obtained regulatory approval from the national authority in the United Kingdom (the MHRA, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency), as well as approval from the Ethics Committees of the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and the Birmingham Children’s Hospital to start a Phase I/II clinical trial with its product ATIR201™ for thalassemia, according to schedule.
Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder which results in abnormal hemoglobin formation, leading to improper oxygen transport and destruction of red blood cells. In this new trial the safety and feasibility of using ATIR201™ in pediatric and adult patients suffering from beta-thalassemia major, the most severe form of the disease, will be studied.
There is currently no approved curative medicine for beta-thalassemia major. The current standard of care treatment is purely symptomatic, requiring lifelong blood transfusions and iron chelators, with drug support to improve hematopoiesis. Replacing the diseased system and restoring the proper production of hemoglobin through an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) from a healthy half-matched family donor could provide a cure for this disease. After an HSCT treatment, however, it usually takes the patient several months to recover to near-normal blood cell levels and immune cell functions, during which time the patient is vulnerable to infections caused by bacteria, viruses and fungi.
The addition of ATIR201™, administered as an adjunctive immuno-therapeutic on top of an HSCT, is intended to provide the patient with functional, mature immune cells that can fight infections while not eliciting severe Graft-versus-Host-Disease (GVHD), thereby bridging the time until the immune system has fully re-grown from stem cells in the transplanted graft.
The new trial will commence in the United Kingdom and the Company plans to expand the trial into Germany pending regulatory approval. A total of up to ten beta-thalassemia major patients will be enrolled. Kiadis Pharma expects first safety and efficacy results to become available in the second half of 2017.