GeNeuro, a biopharmaceutical company developing new treatments for neurodegenerative and autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis (MS), today announced that the company and the Karolinska Institutet's Academic Specialist Center (ASC) will present the rationale of its new Phase 2 study at MSVirtual2020 (8th Joint ACTRIMS-ECTRIMS Meeting), held September 11-13, 2020.
The trial, which is evaluating the administration of temelimab in patients with relapsing MS to address disease progression independent of relapses following treatment with rituximab, is being conducted at the Karolinska Institutet's Academic Specialist Center, Stockholm, Sweden.
The one-year ProTEct-MS study will enrol 40 patients whose disability progresses in absence of relapses. Although highly effective disease-modifying therapies are available today to suppress relapses and lesion formation, they have limited effect on MS disease progression and patient disability over time. The unmet medical need in MS are drugs that act against the pathogenesis of inflammation-independent neurodegeneration. Long-term data from the Phase 2 ANGEL-MS trial conducted by GeNeuro has shown that temelimab, a monoclonal antibody designed to neutralize a pathogenic retroviral envelope protein, pHERV-W Env expressed by microglial cells in MS lesion tissue, has a remarkably consistent neuroprotective effect on key MRI measures linked to MS disease progression.
By targeting fundamental underlying mechanisms of neurodegeneration in MS, such as neutralizing microglial-mediated damage, as well as restoring the remyelination capacity of oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs), temelimab may address the critical unmet medical need of blocking disability progression independent of relapse activity in MS. Since temelimab has no significant anti-inflammatory effect, a cohort of patients previously treated with a highly effective disease modifying drug, such as the anti-CD20 antibody rituximab, but whose disability is increasing without relapses, will allow to properly explore temelimab's tissue protective and anti-neurodegenerative effects.
About GeNeuro
GeNeuro's mission is to develop safe and effective treatments against neurological disorders and autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, by neutralizing causal factors encoded by HERVs, which represent 8% of human DNA.
GeNeuro is based in Geneva, Switzerland and has R&D facilities in Lyon, France. It has rights to 17 patent families protecting its technology.
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