ImmuPharma PLC (LON:IMM), the specialist drug discovery and development company, is delighted to provide insight into its positive results from pre-clinical studies of the P140 peptide for Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (‘CIDP’), a relapsing-remitting autoimmune-mediated inflammatory disease of the peripheral nervous system for which specifically-targeted therapies are still lacking.
The results have been published in the ‘Journal of Autoimmunity’ entitled: “An autophagy-targeting peptide to treat chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathies”. This paper is available to review on line at the Journal of Autoimmunity: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaut.2018.05.009
This study was headed by Professor Sylviane Muller, inventor of P140/Lupuzor™, ImmuPharma’s lead compound for Lupus, a potentially life threatening auto-immune disease.
It has already been demonstrated by a number of presentations by the Company that the mechanism of action of P140/Lupuzor™ can potentially be applied to a number of other auto-immune diseases in addition to Lupus.
Key highlights of the CIDP pre-clinical study include:
· Macro-autophagy and chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA), are significantly altered in non-neuronal cells of the peripheral nervous system
· P140/Lupuzor™, known to target CMA and successfully used in pathological settings where CMA markers are overexpressed, considerably ameliorated the clinical and biological course of the disease in the CIDP model used
· P140 displayed prophylactic and therapeutic effects, both in terms of disease intensity and chronicity, and preserved sciatic nerves from disease-related damages
· The findings uncover new disrupted molecular pathways in the model and provide a proof-of-concept that targeting CMA might represent a promising therapeutic strategy for treating inflammatory neuropathies for which no disease-specific treatment is currently available.
Commenting on this announcement, Professor Sylviane Muller said:
“Over the last couple of years we have provided further evidence of the role the P140 peptide can take in the potential treatment of other autoimmune diseases in addition to Lupus. We are delighted that these results demonstrate positive pre-clinical data in a murine model of CIDP, which has no available disease-specific treatment. We look forward to providing a further update on the progress of our CIDP programme in due course.”
