Biovista Inc. Announces Positive Efficacy Results In A Pre-clinical Trial Of Its BVA-201 Repositioned Drug For Multiple Sclerosis

Main Category: Multiple Sclerosis
Also Included In: Clinical Trials / Drug Trials
Article Date: 10 Sep 2009 - 2:00 PDT

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Biovista Inc. announced that BVA-201, its drug targeting Multiple Sclerosis (MS), has shown significant positive results in the MOG-induced Experimental Allergic Encephalomyelitis (EAE) murine model of MS. BVA-201 is an existing drug that Biovista repositioned in MS and is aimed at neuroprotection. It was shown to have both efficacy in reducing symptoms and no toxic effects in this well established model of MS.

"This is our second success in MS in a period of 6 months, with BVA-201 showing efficacy levels closely comparable to those of dexamethasone," said Aris Persidis, Ph.D., President of Biovista. "Histology results are also encouraging, since they seem to confirm our expectations regarding the compound's mechanism of action. What is even more important is that BVA-201 has a known and very favorable safety profile and is already approved for chronic use," Dr. Persidis added.

About Biovista's BVA-201 trial in the MS EAE-MOG model

MS is a chronic inflammatory neurological disease. It is the most frequent non-traumatic disabling neurologic disease among young adults, with over 2.5 million patients worldwide. In the animal proof-of-concept trial, BVA-201 was compared to dexamethasone, a potent anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive drug that is efficient in accelerating the recovery from MS relapses but too toxic for chronic use. BVA-201 induced a statistically significant reduction of EAE severity, the magnitude of which was directly comparable to that caused by dexamethasone. Furthermore, BVA-201 protected neural axons and myelin against degeneration, as shown in the histology analysis performed. This analysis provided strong evidence that the compound works as a neuroprotective agent as opposed to most currently approved drugs that target the immune system.

About Biovista's repositioning pipeline and technology platform

Biovista applies high-throughput discovery efforts to finding solutions for commercially relevant, unmet medical needs. Biovista's proprietary repositioning technology allows the company's experts to perform mechanism-of-action based analyses and systematically assess clinical outcomes in any therapeutic area of interest, at relatively low cost and very short time spans. The company is presently using this platform to develop its own pipeline of repositioned drugs in areas such as CNS, cardiovascular disease, oncology and auto-immune diseases.

Source: Biovista Inc