PureTech has announced that the first participant has been dosed in a clinical study of LYT-100, the company’s product candidate for the potential treatment of lymphoedema and other fibrotic conditions.
The trial is designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetic (PK) profile of LYT-100 in healthy participants, as a follow-up to the single ascending dose clinical trial of LYT-100 in healthy individuals that was conducted by Auspex.
The diseases cause “significant disability and pain, yet there are few meaningful treatment options, most of which involve compression and physical therapy to control swelling,” said Babak Mehrara, chief, plastic and reconstructive surgical service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “LYT-100 is designed to address the underlying cause of lymphoedema by reducing fibrosis and inflammation and restoring lymphatic function, and I believe it holds tremendous potential as a therapeutic candidate for the treatment of lymphoedema.”
The drug being evaluated is an oral, small molecule drug candidate known as deupirfenidone, which has demonstrated preclinical anti-fibrotic and anti-inflammatory activity.
The trial marks the first clinical programme in PureTech’s Wholly Owned Pipeline, which is focused on harnessing the lymphatic system and related immunology mechanisms for the treatment of cancer, immunological, lymphatic and central nervous system (CNS)-related disorders.
Lymphoedema is a chronic condition that is characterised by severe swelling in parts of the body, typically the arms or legs, due to the build-up of lymph fluid and inflammation, fibrosis and adipose deposition.
There are currently no FDA-approved drugs to treat lymphoedema, which is a painful, progressive, and chronic condition that affects approximately one million individuals in the US alone, including about 500,000 breast cancer survivors.
