TAGCyx secured a grant funding from ‘Support Program for Orphan drug prior to the Designation’ of Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED).
The grant provided by AMED will support ‘Development of a therapeutic agent for treatment of Hunner-type interstitial cystitis (TAGX-0003)’.
Interstitial cystitis (IC) refers to a symptom syndrome complex characterized by persistent pain perceived being related to the urinary bladder in conjunction with urinary frequency and/or urgency. Hunner-type IC (HIC) is a rare intractable disease and diagnosed by the cystoscopic finding of inflammatory lesion known as Hunner lesions. To date, there are no satisfactory treatments for HIC except only symptomatic therapy. It has been established that HIC is caused as a consequence of immune abnormality based on recent research and the patients suffered from HIC often develop autoimmune diseases. IFN-g is known to play a central role in the etiology of HIC like other autoimmune diseases.
TAGCyx are developing TAGX-0003, an anti-IFN- g aptamer, which has high affinity and signal inhibitory activity against IFN- g. TAGX-0003 has been already confirmed possessing a prominent efficacy in a mouse model of HIC, therefore TAGCyx believe that TAGX-0003 will provide a radical cure for HIC patients based on the etiology of HIC.
TAGCyx will advance the preclinical development of TAGX-0003, supported by AMED grant. Additional pharmacological studies, pharmacokinetics studies for PK/PD evaluation, GLP toxicity and safety pharmacology studies, parallel with process development of large-scale synthesis for GMP manufacturing are scheduled under the grant support. For accelerating the preclinical development, Dr. Yoshiyuki Akiyama (Department of Urology, The University of Tokyo Hospital) will advise to this project from a clinical point of view.
AMED website
https://www.amed.go.jp/en/program/list/11/02/001_03-01.html
TAGCyx Biotechnologies Inc.
TAGCyx is a research-based company based in Tokyo (Japan). TAGCyx’s scientific team has established its proprietary Xenoligo® technology platform, an innovative drug discovery system using SELEX with a proprietary expanded genetic alphabet, allowing high functional oligonucleotide drug discovery. Xenoligo® platform utilizes genetic alphabet expansion by unnatural base-pairs to generate customized nucleic acid suited for therapeutic applications.
TAGCyx website
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