Date: 2014-06-24
Type of information: Grant
Company: Zealand Pharma (Denmark)
Investors: Danish Innovation Fund (InnovationsFonden) (Denmark)
Amount: DKK 1 million (€0.13 million)
Funding type: grant
Planned used:
Others: * On June 24, 2014, Zealand Pharma informed that it has initiated a collaboration with the University of Copenhagen, with the objective of fully elucidating the cell protective properties and the therapeutic potential of danegaptide. The collaboration, in the form of a two-year industrial post doctoral project, has been selected by the Danish Innovation Fund (InnovationsFonden) to receive a DKK 1 million grant, complementary with its goal of generating new knowledge with attractive growth potential. Danegaptide is a novel therapeutic peptide, invented by Zealand, which has shown promising anti-arrhythmic and cell protective properties. In preclinical studies, danegaptide has been shown to protect against cardiac reperfusion injuries, caused by the return of blood flow to tissue which, due to a blood clot, has been deprived of oxygen. To evaluate the protective effect of danegaptide in patients after an acute myocardial infarction (AMI), Zealand collaborates with a leading cardiac center in Denmark in a clinical Phase II Proof-of-Concept study, planned to enroll up to 600 patients. The study is advancing as planned with more than 170 patients now enrolled and treated, and results are expected in H2 2015. Based on the previous promising results for danegaptide, Zealand together with the University of Copenhagen will now intensify their work in order to demonstrate the mechanisms which make it possible for danegaptide to protect heart tissue against reperfusion injury, and examine whether the peptide also has cell protective effects in other tissue types.
Therapeutic area: Metabolic diseases
