Serodus Files Patent Application in UK To Begin Pulmonary Hypertension Therapy Development
Serodus ASA recently announced that the company has filed a provisional patent application with the United Kingdom patent office for its experimental SER100 therapy, which will begin development for treatment of Pulmonary Hypertension.
“We are pleased to introduce a new indication for one of our drug candidates. SER100 will now also be developed in Pulmonary Hypertension and the project will be named as SER200,” said Eva Steiness, the company’s CEO.
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The company noted that the additional indication for its lead drug candidate is based on both non-clinical testing and phase I studies in healthy volunteers, and the fact that it is ready to enter a Phase IIa clinical trial. Serodus is a Norwegian company focused on drug advancement and new therapeutic products to address treatment for diseases with serious unmet clinical needs. Initially, the company had indicated SER100 for treatment of Isolated Systolic Hypertension, a hypertensive condition that is typically diagnosed in elderly people and is estimated to affect 50 million people in the western world alone, as well as Acute myocardial infarction, Diabetic nephropathy, and Type 2 Diabetes.
Pulmonary hypertension is an extremely rare disorder that affects both the lungs and heart. Those who suffer from the disease have a short life expectancy of only 2.8 years after diagnosis. Thanks to new treatment approaches and medications, survival time is improving in the patient population, however, PH patients still need to be hospitalized frequently, and almost half of all patients re-enter the hospital 2 or 3 times during the year that follows their first hospitalization. Serodus believes that their lead product can help improve PH patient outcomes.
Pulmonary hypertension is classified into 5 different subgroups based on the different etiological backgrounds. Serodus is highly focused on 2 Group I and Group IV, both of which are considered the rarest forms of the disease. Because Serodus’ business model is based on seeking partnerships with international pharmaceutical companies once they have demonstrated clinical success of their products in humans, the company will look to advance SER200 in early clinical trials and garner positive results for future partnerships toward drug approval and commercialization.
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Read More Recent Pulmonary Hypertension News
In a new study entitled “Salidroside attenuates chronic hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension via adenosine A2a receptor related mitochondria-dependent apoptosis pathway,” the authors report on the beneficial effects of salidroside in treating hypoxia-induced pulmonary arterial hypertension by decreasing arterial remodeling and promoting pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells apoptosis. The study was published in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology.
The team postulated that salidroside might promote protection against hypoxia-induced PAH by inducing mitochondria-dependent apoptosis via expression of adenosine A2a receptor. These findings may lead to additional studies on salidroside and its future use as an hypoxic pulmonary hypertension therapeutic.
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