Inventiva, a drug discovery company focused on the treatments of fibrotic, oncological, and rare diseases, announced that the organizing committee of the 4th Systemic Sclerosis World Congress in Lisbon, Portugal, which was held Feb. 18-20 this year, has given the company an award for its innovative approach taken with IVA337, a new drug candidate able to act on several components of the fibrotic process and on several organs, representing a potential therapy for systemic sclerosis.
IVA337 is able to activate the three PPAR (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor) isoforms: alpha, delta and gamma, which are nuclear receptors involved in the fibrotic process.
A poster titled “Pan PPAR agonist IVA337 has an anti‐fibrotic effect in multiple in vitro and in vivo fibrosis models” showed how IVA337, a next‐generation pan PPAR agonist, is able to treat fibrosis in organs affected by systemic sclerosis through a unique mechanism of action. IVA337 was also found to exert an anti-fibrotic action in several in vitro and in vivo models of fibrosis in the lungs, liver, and kidneys, providing further evidence of the critical role of PPARs in fibrogenesis.
Additional results regarding the effects of IVA337 on skin fibrosis were presented at the World Congress by Prof. Yannick Allanore, professor of rheumatology at Hôpital Cochin in Paris, in a presentation titled “Pan PPAR agonist IVA337 is effective in prevention and treatment of experimental skin fibrosis.”
“We are very proud to have been selected from over 400 high‐level research submissions presented at this Congress, which is the most important scientific global event in the field of systemic sclerosis,” said Pierre Broqua, chief scientific officer and co‐founder of France-based Inventiva in a press release. “This recognition reflects IVA337’s promising therapeutic potential, not only in systemic sclerosis, but also in other indications involving fibrosis, such as NASH [non-alcoholic steato-hepatitis], for which no effective treatments exist yet.”
IVA337 is currently being evaluated in a Phase 2b clinical trial for the treatment of systemic sclerosis, in which Inventiva is planning to enroll 135 patients in eight European countries.
Inventiva also has plans to launch a phase 2b clinical trial with IVA337 as a therapy for NASH, a severe and chronic form of fatty liver disease. NASH increases five- to tenfold the risk of liver-related mortality, and is expected to become the leading cause of liver transplantation by 2020.
For more information about Inventiva and IVA337, please read this related article and listen to an exclusive interview.