Conatus Pharmaceuticals Initiates a Second Phase 2 Clinical Trial for the Treatment of...( SAN DIEGO June 24 /- Conatus Pharmace...),Health

SAN DIEGO, June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced today the initiation of a second Phase 2 clinical trial with a novel drug candidate for the treatment of liver disease associated with Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection. The trial will enroll patients for whom treatment with approved standard of care treatments is not currently advised. Results from an earlier clinical trial in HCV patients who failed standard of care treatment are expected to be reported later this year.

CTS-1027 is an oral, small molecule compound that inhibits the activity of key members of a class of protease enzymes, the matrix metalloproteinases or MMPs. CTS-1027 had previously been shown to be effective in multiple preclinical models of inflammatory liver disease and HCV infection.

The clinical trial is a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial testing an optimized dose of CTS-1027 alone or in combination with ribavirin. Dosing will last for up to twenty four weeks. The Company expects approximately 70 patients to be enrolled. The clinical trial will be conducted at up to twenty five medical centers in the U.S. Additional information

about the trial can be found at: www.clinicaltrials.gov (identifier NCT00925990) or http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00925990?term=cts1027&rank=2

"Our recent preclinical studies suggest that CTS-1027 treatment has the potential to impact the second phase of HCV virus inhibitory kinetics in patients. This phase is associated with the gradual reduction and replacement of HCV infected cells by uninfected liver cells. Interestingly, ribavirin is also postulated to have the greatest impact on HCV sec
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