Curacyte awarded a grant from the German state of Thuringia to fund lead optimisation and pre-clinical development of novel orally available Factor Xa inhibitors
Curacyte, a Munich-based drug development company, has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Curacyte Chemistry, has been awarded a €1.2 million R and D grant from the German state of Thuringia's corporate technology development programme.
The grant will fund the lead optimisation and pre-clinical development of the company's novel orally available small molecule inhibitors of the blood clotting Factor Xa for the treatment of thrombotic disorders.
Curacyte's Factor Xa inhibitor programme originates from the company's protease platform technology that consists of proprietary libraries of small molecule inhibitors of trypsin-like serine proteases.
This protease technology platform is being developed through a close scientific collaboration with the Center for Vascular Biology and Medicine, University of Jena, led by Jorg Sturzebecher.
Andreas Zaby, chief financial officer of Curacyte, commented: "We are delighted to have been selected for this highly competitive grant.
"The funds will enable us to shorten development timelines by significantly expanding our R and D capacity at Curacyte Chemistry.
"We will also further intensify our long-standing and productive collaboration with the Center for Vascular Biology and Medicine, University of Jena and will seek to establish a network with other renowned academic institutes in Jena's emerging biotechnology cluster".
For many years, the antithrombotics market has been demanding oral anticoagulants with improved efficacy and reduced side effects compared to the conventional parenterally administered thrombin inhibitors. Factor Xa is a well-validated target in thrombosis and clinical data indicates that inhibition of this target gives superior efficacy and safety over thrombin inhibitors.
However, commercially available Factor Xa inhibitor compounds are still limited to injectables.
Curacyte's Factor Xa inhibitor programme is aimed at developing orally available anticoagulants that can provide safe and effective prevention and treatment of both venous and arterial thrombosis to outpatients.
The anti-thrombotics market is worth over $8 billion globally and 10 million people worldwide could benefit from oral anti-coagulants for the treatment or prevention of thrombotic diseases.
