Lexicon Initiates Phase 2 Clinical Trial of LX2931 in Patients With Rheumatoid...( ...),Health

THE WOODLANDS, Texas, Aug. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: LXRX), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing breakthrough treatments for human disease, announced today that it has initiated a Phase 2 clinical trial of LX2931 in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. LX2931 is an orally-delivered, small molecule drug candidate that has recently completed Phase 1 testing in normal volunteers. Lexicon also successfully completed a drug-drug interaction (DDI) study of LX2931 with methotrexate in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, with no clinically significant drug-drug interactions observed.

"We believe that, as an oral therapy, LX2931 could have advantages over current biologic therapies in treating patients with rheumatoid arthritis," said Philip M. Brown, M.D., J.D., senior vice president of clinical development at Lexicon. "LX2931 has demonstrated potent anti-inflammatory activity in preclinical models of arthritis and inflammation and, importantly, has been well tolerated in combination with methotrexate, the current standard of care first-line therapy."

LX2931 inhibits sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) lyase, an enzyme identified by Lexicon scientists as a promising new target on a pathway associated with regulation of the human immune system. Lexicon has previously shown that genetically "knocking out" or "knocking down" S1P lyase in mice substantially decr
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