Altor receives NHLBI SBIR grant to complete ALT-836 second Phase 2 trial in ALI/ARDS

May 24 2011

Altor BioScience Corporation announced today that the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has awarded Altor a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II Competing Renewal Grant. The award of over $3.18 MM over three years will support Altor's efforts to complete a second Phase 2 clinical trial using ALT-836, an antibody-based tissue factor (TF) antagonist, as a therapy to treat patients with infection-induced acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome (ALI/ARDS). Patient enrollment of this 90-patient, multi-center, randomized, placebo-controlled trial using a multi-dose regimen of ALT-836 has been initiated. This trial follows a recently completed 60-patient, multi-center, randomized, placebo-controlled trial with a single-dose of ALT-836, which was also supported by a Phase II SBIR grant from NHLBI. The results of that recently completed Phase 2 trial suggest that a single dose of ALT-836 provides benefit to patients with ALI/ARDS without additional risks of bleeding complications, a major safety concern associated with this kind of therapy.

Altor's President & CEO Hing C. Wong, Ph.D., commented, "Based on our results of the first Phase 2 trial, we are excited by the potential of ALT-836 for treating ALI/ARDS and are very interested in confirming and extending these findings in the follow-up study. This is a devastating disease for which there currently is no meaningful medical therapy. We are very grateful for the continued support, particularly in this difficult funding environment, and for the validation provided by the NIH/NHBLI for our approach."

Source: Altor BioScience