Histogen Inc. a clinical-stage therapeutics company focused on developing potential first-in-class therapeutics that ignite the body’s natural process to repair and maintain healthy biological function, announced entering into a Collaborative Development and Commercialization Agreement with Amerimmune LLC to jointly develop emricasan, an orally active caspase inhibitor, for the treatment of COVID-19. Additionally, Histogen has received Investigational New Drug (IND) approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to initiate a Phase 1 study of emricasan in mild-COVID-19 patients to assess safety and tolerability. Amerimmune, which will lead the development efforts of emricasan, has selected clinical sites at two major medical centers in the New York City metropolitan area to conduct the study. Amerimmune is pursuing non-dilutive funding in order to support the clinical program and anticipates initiating the Phase 1 study as early as the end of 2020.
Under the terms of the collaboration, Histogen will retain ownership and oversight over emricasan and responsibility for all regulatory filings and maintaining its existing caspase inhibitor patent portfolio. Amerimmune, in collaboration with Histogen, will fund and lead the emricasan development efforts and maintain its own portfolio of patents for caspase inhibition and immunotherapy. Additionally, Amerimmune has been granted an option to commercialize emricasan under certain conditions for the sole purpose of supporting future third-party partnering transactions. Should any such partnering transaction emerge, Histogen and Amerimmune will share profits equally. The parties will manage the collaboration under a joint development and partnering committee governance structure.
“Since completing the merger with Conatus Pharmaceuticals in the second quarter, we have been evaluating opportunities to create value from the emricasan asset, which we believe can be best accomplished in partnership with Amerimmune in the potential treatment of COVID-19. The Amerimmune team brings both a strong caspase inhibitor scientific background and relevant technologies for the treatment of COVID-19 using caspase inhibitors to this collaboration,” said Richard Pascoe, President and CEO of Histogen. “With Amerimmune leading the development efforts related to emricasan, Histogen will remain focused on delivering the top line data results in the fourth quarter of 2020 for its HST-001 Phase 1b/2a trial for androgenic alopecia in men, evaluating a clinical pathway for HST-002 as a dermal filler, and continuing to progress our HST-003 program for regeneration of cartilage in the knee,” concluded Pascoe.
“We are delighted to work in collaboration with Histogen to explore the potential role of caspase inhibition as a therapy for reducing disease severity and progression of COVID-19,” said Dr. Oral Alpan, CEO of Amerimmune. “We believe our research and development efforts over the last decade have enabled us to make important advancements in our understanding of how SARS-CoV-2 compromises the immune system. We are encouraged by our progress and look forward to advancing emricasan into the clinic as early as the end of 2020,“ concluded Dr. Alpan.