PeriCor Therapeutics Announces Closing of Licensing Agreement for Acadesine with Schering-Plough C...(cardioprotective activity. Last year a l...)

Date:8/20/2007

cardioprotective activity. Last year, a landmark study of this novel cardioprotective agent demonstrated the drug's ability to prolong long-term survival in those patients who suffer heart attacks following heart bypass surgery. Among patients who underwent CABG surgery and suffered post-reperfusion myocardial infarction (MI), mortality after two years was reduced by 77% with acadesine treatment. (p=0.006) (JACC 2006: 48:206-14). The principal benefit, which was observed in the first 30 days following MI, was sustained over the two-year period. The incidence of adverse events was similar in the acadesine and placebo groups, with the exception of a transient increase in serum uric acid among acadesine-treated patients and a higher incidence of heart failure in placebo-treated patients.

Adenosine-Mediated Cardioprotection

Adenosine regulation by acadesine provides highly site- and event-specific amplification of adenosine-mediated cardioprotection while exhibiting a remarkable safety profile in more than 2,000 patients who have received the drug in controlled clinical trials. Adenosine targets a broad-spectrum of the pathophysiology of ischemia/reperfusion injury that involves an even broader range of chemical mediators and cell types than was recognized only ten years ago. Adenosine has been shown to be a powerful mediator of ischemic preconditioning, the most potent approach to reducing infarct size in ischemia/reperfusion injury in animal studies.

"Acadesine represents the first of an entirely new class of cardioprotective agents that harness and enhance the cardioprotective activity of endogenous adenosine," said Robert L. Engler, M.D., one of the original discoverers of the cardioprotective effects of adenosine regulating agents (ARAs). "As such, we are optimistic that acadesine may become the first clinically available 'preconditioning mimetic' agent." Mr. Stover noted, "The closing of this licensing transaction will enable PeriCor to move ahe
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SOURCE PeriCor Therapeutics, Inc. Copyright©2007 PR Newswire.

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