ABIONYX Pharma announced the presentation of new preclinical data for CER-001 in the treatment of brain dysfunction associated with acute kidney injury at the 1st International Congress on brain-kidney interaction: from physiology to clinics, to be held from November 23 to 24, 2023 in Naples, Italy. This lecture presentation follows the presentation of preclinical results on the effects of CER-001 in brain dysfunction induced by acute kidney injury, which were the subject of a dedicated poster at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) held from November 2 to 5, 2023, as part of Kidney Week. To date there are no appropriate preventive or therapeutic solutions to treat brain dysfunction related to kidney injury consecutive or concomitant with sepsis.

A preclinical study has been sponsored by ABIONYX Pharma to assess the effects of recombinant apoA-I phospholipid complexes in reducing the inflammatory process and preventing sepsis-induced acute renal failure and brain dysfunction. In both CER-001 dose groups (20 mg/kg and 2x20 mg/kg), blood samples showed a significant reduction in Indolamine-2,3-dioxygenase enzyme activity, measured as the kynurenine/tryptophan ratio (p<0.05) and quinolinic acid levels (p<0.005) compared with the untreated control group. In addition, a significant decrease in systemic and brain interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels was observed after CER-001 treatment.

Taken together, these data indicate that CER-001 treatment can reduce the inflammatory response, retention of residual substances and neuroactive compounds, thereby potentially improving renal and cognitive function in sepsis-induced acute renal failure. These results pave the way for future clinical trials in potential additional indications, such as neuropsychiatric lupus or, more importantly long Covid.