Date: 2015-10-20
Type of information: Presentation of results at a congress
phase: preclinical
Announcement: presentation of results at the Society for Neuroscience’s 45th annual meeting (Neuroscience 2015) in Chicago
Company: Sensorion (France)
Product: SENS-200
Action mechanism:
Disease: hearing loss resulting from acoustic trauma
Therapeutic area: Otorhinolaryngology
Country:
Trial details:
Latest
news: * On October 20, 2015, Sensorion, a biotech specialising in the treatment of inner ear diseases, announced that the results of a preclinical trial on a new drug candidate aimed at the curative treatment of severe hearing loss have been presented at the Society for Neuroscience’s 45th annual meeting (Neuroscience 2015) in Chicago. The abstract, entitled “Effective protection against severe noise-induced hearing loss by a small molecule clinical drug candidate following daily, post-trauma systemic administration”, was presented during a session devoted to mechanoreceptors and the cochlea by Dr. Jonas Dyhrfjeld-Johnsen, Sensorion’s Head of * On June 4, 2015, Sensorion announced that positive results have been obtained from a proof-of-concept in vivo preclinical trial on a new drug candidate aimed at the curative treatment of severe hearing loss. No effective drug is currently available to treat disabling sensorineural hearing loss induced by acoustic trauma, which affects some 11 million patients worldwide. Sensorion selected, through its screening platform, a small-molecule drug candidate that can be taken orally and is capable of reducing the impact of injury process associated with acoustic trauma. These processes affect the inner ear’s neurosensory tissue and lead to hearing loss.
Pharmacology.
Sensorion carried out a proof-of-concept in vivo preclinical trial on animals affected by acute bilateral neurosensory hearing loss. In this study, animals were exposed to a 120 dB noise level for 2 hours and then randomized to 14 consecutive days treatment with either the systemically administered placebo or a Sensorion drug candidate from the small-molecule SENS-200 programme. In the group treated with this small molecule, the level of hearing loss measured on Day 14 was reduced by an average of 50% (with a maximum of 60%) compared with the placebo group, for which the hearing loss reached an average of 40dB. This treatment effect
was due to the recovery in hearing loss recorded in the group treated with the small molecule being twice as high (33.4 dB versus 16.7 dB in the placebo group) starting from the same initial level of hearing loss.
Furthermore, histological analysis revealed that the average loss of sensory outer hair cells in the most sensitive regions of the cochlea was reduced by around 36% on average (maximum of 75%) in the group treated with the small molecule compared with the placebo group, where there was substantial loss of neurosensory cells.
Within the framework of this proof-of-concept in vivo preclinical trial, animals in which acute bilateral sensorineural hearing loss was induced by major sustained acoustic trauma were randomly treated over fourteen consecutive days with either the drug candidate or a placebo. Those treated via the systemic administration of this small molecule each day experienced a 60% improvement in their sensorineural hearing ability on average, compared with the placebo group, or an improvement in their hearing of around 40 dB. Sensorion has submitted an abstract to present these results at the Society for Neuroscience’s 45th annual meeting (Neuroscience 2015), which will take place from October 17 to 21, 2015 in Chicago.
