The Board of Directors of Idogen AB (publ) announced its decision to focus all development activities on its IDO 8 program. Idogen will shortly commence the Phase I/IIa clinical trial of its drug candidate in the IDO 8 program for patients who suffer from hemophilia and have developed antibodies against their vital factor VIII treatment. This is the company's most important milestone to date. The decision to pause the IDO T and IDO AID programs temporarily in combination with other efficiency enhancement measures, will allow the company to drastically lower its operating expenditure.

Prior to the start of the clinical trial, key opinion leaders in hemophilia suggested that the company's cell therapy may have potential to be used as a replacement for the expensive - and for patients, demanding - immune tolerance induction (ITI) treatments. A cell therapy that could reduce or eliminate inhibitors in patients who have developed antibodies of this type is clearly advantageous and could potentially be useful in a patient population that is approximately three times larger than that previously announced by the company. The commercial value may therefore be substantially greater compared to that previously assumed.

A positive outcome in the IDO 8 program, or proof of concept (PoC), would validate the technology platform. In addition to the IDO T program, the company has also identified approximately one hundred autoimmune diseases that may benefit from  treatment with a tolerogenic inducing mechanism of action, and it is expected that a handful of these - specifically those whose antigens are known - could be manufactured using a similar process to that developed for the IDO 8 program.