Cardium's Corgentin Preclinical Program Shows High Levels of Targeting to Acutely Ischemic Heart Muscle Following Intracoronar...( SAN DIEGO March 11 /- Cardium The...)

SAN DIEGO, March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cardium Therapeutics (Amex: CXM) announced positive findings from its preclinical study being conducted by researchers at Emory University, which demonstrated highly efficient uptake of DNA-based vectors within acutely ischemic myocardium (heart muscle lacking sufficient blood flow as a result of blockage of the coronary arteries). The study employed an occlusion and reperfusion model analogous to a heart attack or acute myocardial infarction, in which the coronary arteries supplying the heart muscle are initially blocked and later reopened, as occurs in patients after a heart attack. In that setting, delivery of an adenovector using Cardium's intracoronary administration technique resulted in robust protein expression within acutely ischemic areas of the myocardium that are most at risk for damage following a heart attack. In addition to showing high levels of uptake, there was no evidence of any increase in inflammatory responses following intracoronary infusion to the acutely ischemic heart as compared to controls.

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This study was designed to further support the therapeutic potential of Corgentin(TM) (Ad5IGF-I) to preserve heart tissue and cardiac function following a heart attack and was conducted at Emory University under support of an NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant. Corgentin is a DNA-based therapeutic designed to provide localized and sustained cardiac product
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