Date: 2014-06-04
Type of information: Grant
Company: Autifony Therapeutics (UK)
Investors: Technology Strategy Board (UK)
Amount: £2.2 million (€2.7 million)
Funding type: grant
Planned used: Autifony Therapeutics has been awarded funding of £2.2 million towards a Phase IIa clinical trial in tinnitus patients with its lead compound AUT00063. Autifony will be sponsor of the clinical study, with Professor Deborah Hall at The University of Nottingham and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Nottingham Hearing Biomedical Research Unit (BRU) as lead academic collaborator. AUT00063 is a first-in-class Kv3 potassium channel modulator in development for the treatment of age-related hearing loss, for which a Phase IIa clinical trial is expected to start later this year.
The award will now enable Autifony to initiate a randomized, placebo controlled Phase IIa study in patients with tinnitus in the UK, allowing Autifony to test the drug’s efficacy in this poorly served patient group. Autifony has recently completed a randomized, placebo controlled Phase I study, conducted in the UK, which investigated the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics of orally administered single and multiple dose regimens of AUT00063 in more than 60 young and elderly healthy volunteers. In the study the drug appeared safe and well tolerated, and no serious adverse events were recorded. AUT00063 showed excellent pharmacokinetics, compatible with once/daily oral dosing. The Phase I trial also explored a variety of novel pharmacodynamic endpoints and interactions, which confirmed the engagement of the drug with the Kv3 ion channel target, and provided further supporting evidence for dose selection in the Phase II studies.
Others: * On June 4, 2014, Autifony Therapeutics announced that it has been awarded funding of £2.2 million towards a Phase IIa clinical trial in tinnitus patients with its lead compound AUT00063, by the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board. The award follows an application to the Biomedical Catalyst, jointly funded by the Technology Strategy Board and the Medical Research Council, and comes after the recent successful completion of a randomized, placebo controlled Phase I study, conducted in the UK,
Therapeutic area: Otorhinolaryngology
