S-TARget Achieves Clinical Proof of Concept for Allergy Vaccine SG100 in Asthmatic Non-Human Primates

S-TARget therapeutics (S-TARget), a biotechnology company developing vaccines that address the cause of severe allergic diseases, it has achieved clinical proof of concept for its drug candidate SG100 in non-human primates. SG100 is being developed for the prevention and therapy of severe allergic asthma caused by house dust mite (HDM) allergens. 

Professor Dr Michael van Scott from East Carolina University (USA), who was responsible for the study, commented: “Our group has been performing pre-clinical assessments of respiratory therapeutics in non-human primates since 1998 with drugs from several renowned international pharma and biotech companies. SG100 was the first drug that was able to significantly change both early and late asthma responses.”

In this study, where SG100 was applied to cynomolgus monkeys suffering from house dust mite induced severe chronic allergic asthma, S-TARget has demonstrated that repeated injections of SG100 were able to significantly improve clinical symptoms of both the early as well as the late asthmatic reactions. The placebo control group did not improve. Changes were observed even 90 days after treatment indicating that SG100 has successfully reprogrammed the immune system. The study has also shown that SG100 can be safely applied in highly allergic individuals; only minor local side effects were observed.

“We are really excited about the data from this study as it shows that S-TARget’s technology platform is safe and efficacious in a clinically highly predictive animal model for chronic severe allergic asthma”, commented Geert Mudde, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer of S-TARget and Co-founder of the company.

Dr Mudde continued: “With this proof-of-concept study, we have demonstrated that treatment with SG100 is able to persistently remodel an existing chronic ‘allergic’ immune response into a ‘healthy’ immune response. This was achieved with only a small number of treatments. Our patented remodeling mechanism is a completely novel and powerful therapeutic approach to address the cause of allergic diseases rather than just treating their symptoms”.

“Having generated this highly promising data in a clinically predictive proof-of-concept study is ‘the’ pivotal achievement so far for S-TARget’s technology and the entire company”, commented Christof Langer, MBA, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of S-TARget. “This set of data provides extraordinary assurance for further investments in S-TARget. Based on the results of this study we are in good shape to raise the funds to move SG100 into clinical development and initiate a Phase I/II clinical trial in 2015.”