Faron Pharma Oy (LON:FARN), the AIM-listed drug developer, said it expects data from a global COVID-19 trial involving its Traumakine drug in the final quarter of the year.
Traumakine, an intravenously administered interferon beta -1a treatment, is part of the World Health Organisation’s global SOLIDARITY trial, which involves the drug as a treatment on its own and in combination with others.
Traumakine is also part of the global REMAP-CAP trial for people with community-acquired pneumonia, which includes COVID-19 while a new trial, Hisbiscus at Harvard Medical School, involving Traumakine and focused on respiratory patients in intensive care begins in the fourth quarter.
Elsewhere, Faron added that its cancer drug development Clevegen is also making good progress through phase I/II of the ongoing MATINS trial.
This trial was recently expanded to ten types of the disease, though Faron said today that the next part will focus on four types - colorectal, ovarian, cutaneous melanoma and uveal melanoma.
Markku Jalkanen, chief executive, added: "Our novel precision cancer immunotherapy, bexmarilimab [Clevegen], continues to deliver very promising results in a development programme that has rapidly expanded this year.
“Our confidence in this novel therapy has been strengthened by the MATINS Part I data, showing that bexmarilimab has led to CLEVER-1 inhibition with immune cell activation and downregulation of several checkpoint molecules.
“We look forward to the upcoming WHO SOLIDARITY trial data in the fourth quarter of this year and expect to initiate our HIBISCUS US study with Harvard University in the fourth quarter of this year.”
Faron raised €14mln earlier in the year and this has put it in a strong financial position to carry out its clinical programmes, Jalkanen added.
The company posted a loss for the half-year to end June of €7.3mln and finished the period with cash of €11.6mln.