Ergomed (LON:ERGO) said a drug it is helping develop for sickle-cell disease (SCD) is moving into phase II clinical trials.
SCD a severe hereditary form of anaemia, though this proof of concept study will be used to treat patients with vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC), a painful, but common complication.
Ergomed’s partner, the Swedish firm Dilaforette, is hoping to recruit 70 sufferers that can be evaluated using the drug, which is called sevuparin.
The trial will be double-blind and placebo controlled. This simply means that half the group will receive a placebo that is designed to have no effect, while the others will get sevuparin. Researchers won’t know until the study is over which group is which.
The aim is to see whether the drug reduces the time it takes to resolve the VOC. The so called ‘secondary end-points’ are pharmacokinetics (how the drug is absorbed and treated by the body) and safety.
Ergomed chief executive Miroslav Reljanovic said: "As our first co-development agreement in orphan drug development, we are very pleased to see the first patient recruited into the trial.
“The start of the study is an exciting milestone for Ergomed and our collaboration with Dilaforette reaffirms our commitment to developing drugs for rare diseases."