Alchemia receives A$2.9 million Australian grant to develop eye-disease drugs

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, Nov. 7 - Alchemia Ltd. received a A$2.9 million Australian Government Commercial Ready grant to advance the development of a new treatment for eye diseases, the company said Monday.

Alchemia said it will use the funding toward its pre-clinical development and to advance testing of a new drug candidate to phase I human clinical trials, according to a company news release.

The company is developing novel anti-angiogenic compounds that inhibit new blood-vessel formation as a potential therapeutic for debilitating eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy (DR), company officials said.

The grant was the fifth of its kind to be awarded to the company since it formed in 1995, company officials said.

Alchemia's anti-angiogenic compounds belong to a novel class of small molecule "somatostatin agonists" that provide a multi-point attack on blood vessel growth, providing multiple opportunities to affect the disease progression of AMD and DR, officials said.

"There is currently a significant unmet medical need for the treatment of these incapacitating eye diseases with no cure, extremely limited therapeutic options and rapidly increasing global incidence," Dr. Tracie Ramsdale, Alchemia's managing director, said in the release.

It is estimated that 1.75 million U.S. residents have significant symptoms associated with AMD, which is expected to grow to 3 million by 2020, officials said. DR is estimated to affect half of all diabetics during the course of their disease progression, representing 9.1 million potential sufferers in 2002 in the United States alone, officials said.

Alchemia'a anti-angiogenic compounds were discovered using the company's proprietary drug discovery technology VAST and also has applications for treating cancer, officials said.

Alchemia is a Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, drug discovery company.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.