Repeated setbacks aside, little Capricor has suggested it has generated some long-term data to support its pursuit to garner approval for its stem cell therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, although some of the data appeared to underwhelmed investors.

The data from the small, placebo-controlled mid-stage study, HOPE-2, tracked the effects of the companys stem cell therapy CAP-1002, which is designed to temper the inflammation associated with DMD, in 8 boys and young men who are in advanced stages of DMD. The remaining 12 enrolled patients received the placebo.

The main goal of the study was a measure that evaluates shoulder, arm and hand strength in patients who are generally non-ambulant (performance of the upper limb (PUL) 2.0), as suggested by the FDA, Capricor said. It is one of several ways Capricor quantified skeletal muscle improvement in the trial.

The intravenous infusion of CAP-1002, given every 3 months, induced a statistically meaningful improvement of 2.4 points (p=0.05) versus the placebo group, in which patient declines were consistent with natural history data. However, on another measure of upper limb function, the trend was in favor of the Capricor drug, but did not hit statistical significance.

The companys shares $CAPR were down nearly 13% to $6.89 in morning trading.

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Meanwhile, there were also some encouraging data on cardiac function the genetic condition is characterized by progressive weakness and chronic inflammation of the skeletal, heart and respiratory muscles.

As reflected above, CAP-1002 elicited an improvement across different measures of cardiac function, although the effect was not always statistically significant. In particular, the drug also caused a reduction in the levels of the biomarker CK-MB, an enzyme that is only released when there is cardiac muscle cell damage.

Armed with these data and an RMAT and orphan drug designation from the FDA, Capricor is now hoping to eke out a plan with the FDA for marketing approval.

LA-based Capricor initially set out to test the potential of technology that Eduardo Marbn, CEO Linda Marbns husband, developed at Johns Hopkins. But repeated setbacks clobbered the company, which in 2014 traded north of $14 a share. In 2017, J&J walked away from a collaboration on a stem cell therapy for damaged hearts after it flopped in the clinic.

In late 2018, the company voluntarily halted a DMD clinical trial, following a severe allergic reaction that occurred during infusion. In February 2019, the company said it is exploring strategic alternatives for one or more of its products and cutting 21 jobs to keep financially afloat, but had resumed dosing in its DMD trial.

The first batch of positive data on CAP-1002, which consists of progenitor cells derived from donor hearts and is designed to exude exosomes that initiate muscle repair by suppressing inflammation and driving immunomodulation, came last July when the company announced the drug had generated a positive effect at the interim analysis juncture of HOPE-2. Capricor is now working on to flexing its therapeutic muscle with CAP-1002 to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

DMD is a rare muscle-wasting disease caused by the absence of dystrophin, a protein that helps keep muscle cells intact. It disproportionately affects boys and affects roughly 6,000 in the United States.

Patients are essentially treated with steroids. Sarepta Therapeutics now has two exon-skipping drugs designed to treat certain subsets of the disease, although the magnitude of their effect is controversial given that approvals were not based on placebo-controlled data. Meanwhile, Sarepta and others are also pursuing one-time cures in the form of gene therapies to replace the missing dystrophin gene in patients.

Social: Linda Marbn, Capricor CEO (Twitter)

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One year on, Capricor's stem cell therapy appears to help DMD patients in small study, but investors balk at the data - Endpoints News