Topical Hedgehog Agonist Accelerates Wound Healing in Diabetes
May 24, 2006
Digg This! | Send to Newsvine | Add to del.icio.usCuris, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRIS), a therapeutic drug development company, today announced the publication of preclinical data in the journal Circulation, showing that topical Sonic Hedgehog gene therapy accelerated wound healing in an animal model of diabetes. This beneficial effect appeared to involve the enhanced mobilization of blood vessel-forming progenitor cells from the bone marrow to the wound site, whose presence was interpreted as helping to explain the increased blood supply observed within the healing wound. The paper, "Topical sonic hedgehog gene therapy accelerates wound healing in diabetes by enhancing endothelial progenitor cell-mediated microvascular remodeling", was authored by Douglas W. Losordo and others from St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston as part of a collaboration with Curis. This publication expands on the data presented May 2005 at the 66th Annual Meeting of the Society for Investigative Dermatology.
"This paper provides a proof-of-concept demonstration that therapeutic activation of the Hedgehog pathway could potentially be used to treat wounds in people suffering from diabetes, which is a large and growing market where current treatments are inadequate," said Daniel R. Passeri, President and Chief Executive Officer.
About the Hedgehog Agonist Program
The Hedgehog agonist program was exclusively licensed to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in February 2004. Under the terms of the license agreement, Curis retained the right to develop Hedgehog agonists for topical treatment to stimulate hair growth. The license agreement was subsequently amended to broaden Curis' development rights to include topical applications to treat or prevent skin diseases or disorders. In both instances, Wyeth must approve any compound that Curis will develop under its retained development rights. In December 2004, Wyeth approved a group of Hedgehog agonist compounds for use in Curis' retained programs. Curis licensed the Hedgehog agonist technology to Procter & Gamble for the development and commercialization of topical dermatological and hair growth products. This new report suggests that the Hedgehog agonists may be useful for development in a wound healing program. Curis retained rights to this indication for veterinary use and Procter & Gamble has rights to use the Hedgehog agonists for wound healing under its topical dermatological rights.
Posted by dlife at May 24, 2006 02:57 PM