The French biotech, Genkyotex, refusing to get bogged down by the recent failure of its lead molecule- GKT831, to treat patients with type 2 diabetes and kidney disease in a Phase II trial, now has two new potentially successful trials in its hands.
The previous trial with GKT831 concentrated on liver and kidney jointly but this time around, the company has announced two different trials that will take into account, the organs individually.
Genkyotex has now set the ball rolling for a Phase II trial for primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), and a new trial in type 1 diabetics with diabetic kidney disease (DKD) that will run in Australia.
“We did see clear statistically significant results in the liver, that’s why we created the PBC trial. Regarding DKD, we feel that we did not dose long enough. Instead of 12 weeks, we will be treating for 48 weeks. We will also test a higher dose, since we saw a very good safety profile. Targeting NOX enzymes allows us to safely address multiple disease pathways at once. This is very important in a disease like fibrosis, where you have many pathways that drive the disease. That’s the difference between other medications and ours, at the end of the day we should have better efficacy attacking fibrogenesis.”
Says Elias Papatheodorou, CEO of Genkyotex while explaining the trials and corresponding targets.The technology develop by the biotech targets NOX enzymes since they are involved in the stress responses and protein oxidation, and the drug candidates in trails are intended to inhibit both NOX 1 and 4.
The French biotech has now set its sight on Non-Alcoholic SteatoHepatitis or NASH as there are no treatments and the market is estimated at a massive €37Bn.
