Tiziana Life Sciences Ltd (NASDAQ:TLSA) this week announced positive research findings showing the anti-inflammatory potential of the company’s nasal anti-CD3 antibody foralumab when used in combination with semaglutide, a GLP-1 agonist marketed as Ozempic and Wegovy.
CEO Ivor Elrifi joined Proactive to discuss the findings.
Proactive: We're excited to have our first interview with you. I know you recently took over as CEO, so first off, congratulations on the role. Can you give us a little background on yourself and why you decided to take on this job?
Ivor Elrifi: Until I joined Tiziana, I was the global chair of the patent group at Cooley, a large international firm. I've been working on Tiziana's technology for almost 15 years, so I'm very familiar with the biology at play here. It’s an exciting opportunity for me—I wanted to stop being just a lawyer and do more on the business side, particularly to help patients. So this is a great opportunity.
And that opportunity took a step forward with some significant news from the company. Could you tell us about the news and, more importantly, about the product itself?
Certainly. The molecule we’re discussing is a fully human monoclonal antibody called foralumab. It binds to CD3. We have several clinical programs in place, and we're delivering CD3 intranasally to treat conditions like secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, or SPMS. We’ve been treating patients for many months now and have seen promising results, though it’s still anecdotal as we don’t have hundreds of patients yet. But the trend is positive. We're also about to start a Phase 2 trial for Alzheimer’s, which we’re very excited about.
Today’s news is the result of a study conducted at Brigham, which is part of the Harvard network. In this study, we treated mice with foralumab combined with Ozempic, a drug commonly used for weight loss and diabetes. The results were startling: we observed a major reduction in inflammation in the obese mice treated with both drugs. A picture is worth a thousand words, and the press release includes images that convey the results very clearly.
The release mentions that the cytokines, which are inflammatory markers, are essentially causing a storm within the system. How do you take this information and move it forward? What’s the goal?
The goal is to move into human studies. We want to combine our drug with Ozempic in human trials to see if it can improve the side-effect profile for patients taking GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound. Many patients experience side effects with these drugs, which sometimes leads them to stop taking them. We believe that foralumab could help these patients stay on the drug longer.
So, the next step is to get it into clinical trials with humans. Is that something you’re aiming for next year?
Yes, that's correct.
Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and style