TIDMHVO
hVIVO plc
02 September 2016
For immediate release 7.00am: 2 September 2016
HVIVO PLC
("hVIVO" or the "Company")
hVIVO landmark asthma stratification initiative, supporting
targeted therapy
development, is underway
hVIVO plc (AIM: HVO), the pioneer of human disease models, is
delighted to announce that the Company's landmark asthma
stratification initiative is now underway, with the first volunteer
inoculated with human rhinovirus (HRV) at hVIVO's London based
clinical research unit. The hVIVO asthma stratification program
will characterise asthma patients according to clinical and
biomarker phenotypes following HRV challenge to discover a more
effective way to differentiate subtypes of asthma patients -
enabling the development of targeted therapies, disease biomarkers
and more precision medicine-based approaches to asthma care.
Asthma: Urgent Medical Need
Asthma is a heterogeneous disease that affects more than 300
million people, with many people remaining sub-optimally controlled
and currently with no cure. More than 80% of asthma attacks or
exacerbations are caused by viruses, primarily HRV. With over $14.7
billion health care-related expenses per year, a third of which are
due to hospitalisations from severe asthma attacks alone, there is
a critical unmet need for new asthma treatments.
There are currently no simple tests to diagnose asthma or
differentiate between various asthma phenotypes, and no easy way to
predict when a patient is at risk of an asthma attack or
exacerbation, making it difficult to develop targeted therapies
today. Historically treated as one condition, up to 10% of asthma
patients do not respond well to current treatments and 50% of adult
asthma patients in the US have asthma that is uncontrolled -
highlighting the urgent need for more personalised therapies.
Dynamic Study of Asthma "in Motion": First Step Towards
Precision Medicine
The hVIVO asthma initiative is one of the first dynamic
phenotyping projects aiming to characterise asthma not only in the
static or baseline state, but also throughout the evolution of an
exacerbation following viral infection, the most common cause of
exacerbations of asthma. The hVIVO initiative will leverage the
hVIVO viral-induced asthma exacerbation disease model to map the
underlying biology associated with asthma exacerbations.
This unique phenotyping study involves a total of 500 subjects,
including both healthy and asthma patients (GINA 1-5). It aims to
define asthma phenotypes and possible endotypes (i.e. underlying
disease mechanisms) through HRV-16 challenge induced clinical and
biomarker changes, as well as safety and tolerability to HRV-16
challenge in healthy and a broad range of asthma subjects.
Using the hVIVO platform of human disease models, a common cold
infection from human rhinovirus (HRV-16) is generated in asthma
patients and these patients are then continuously monitored as
their condition is exacerbated by the viral infection. This
approach is expected to reveal biological causality previously
unseen by scientists.
In addition to phenotyping asthma patients, this approach is
expected to discover useful biomarkers for predicting and
developing more efficacious treatments for exacerbations of asthma
- a vital first step to advancing more precision-medicine based
treatments. Interim data analysis is expected to be conducted in
the third quarter of 2017.
Kym Denny, hVIVO CEO commented, "Even though millions suffer
from asthma today, very little is understood about this disease.
Even less is known about preventing asthma attacks, where viruses
are the predominant cause. After two years in designing, planning
and piloting, we are excited to officially kick off the sample
collection phase of this exciting project. We believe the hVIVO
platform's capability to provide a window into the disease process
and capture exacerbations in action will be a powerful tool in the
fight to treat and prevent asthma."
Sources:
1. http://www.cdc.gov/asthma/asthma_stats/uncontrolled_asthma.htm
2. Busse, et al (2010), The Role of Viral Respiratory Infections
in Asthma and Asthma Exacerbations, Lancet, 376(9743):826-834
3. Dougherty et al (2009) Acute Exacerbations of Asthma:
Epidemiology, Biology, and the Exacerbation-Prone Phenotype, Clin
Exp Allergy; 39(2):193-202
4. Choy et al, (2015) TH2 and TH17 inflammatory pathways are
reciprocally regulated in asthma, Science Transl Med,
7(301):301ra129
5. http://www.ginasthma.org/
For further information, please contact:
hVIVO plc +44 207 756 1300
Kym Denny (Chief Executive Officer)
Graham Yeatman (Chief Financial & Business Officer)
Media Enquiries +44 203 021 3933 / +44 7854 979 420
Colin Paterson (Director of Marketing, Communication and Public
Relations)
Numis Securities Limited +44 207 260 1000
Michael Meade / Freddie Barnfield (Nominated Adviser)
James Black / Michael Burke (Corporate Broking)
Notes to Editors:
About hVIVO
hVIVO is a life sciences company pioneering a technology
platform of human disease models to accelerate drug discovery and
development in respiratory and infectious diseases, including flu,
RSV, asthma and common cold. hVIVO has commercialised four disease
models, successfully enrolled over 2,000 subjects and conducted
over 45 product validation studies for a wide range of industry,
government and academic clients and collaborators. For more
information, please visit www.hvivo.com, Facebook and Twitter.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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