D-Pharm has announced that its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for a pivotal Phase III clinical trial of DP-b99 in acute ischemic stroke patients has been approved by the FDA. D-Pharm plans to initiate the trial in the coming months, in over 100 clinical sites in North America, Europe, South Africa and Israel. The forthcoming Phase III trial is a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled study (study acronym MACSI: Membrane Activated Chelator Stroke Intervention). It is designed to compare the effect on ischemic stroke outcome between a placebo group and a group of patients treated with 1 mg/kg/day of DP-b99 for 4 consecutive days. D-Pharm plans to enroll 770 moderate to severely affected ischemic stroke patients worldwide, with first patients expected to be recruited in Israel and South Africa. Dr. Gilad Rosenberg, D-Pharm’s VP Clinical Development commented, “The FDA’s IND procedure involved review of the entire DP-b99 data set. Following 30 days for review of our IND application, the FDA has no further questions relating to DP-b99’s CMC, preclinical and clinical data package. I’m very pleased that the Agency is satisfied with our data and we can move forward with this important study without delay.” Prior to the IND submission D-Pharm successfully completed the program outlined at the pre-IND meeting held with the FDA in January 2008. The program included additional toxicity studies, a drug interaction study with rtPA, and an interaction study with warfarin in healthy volunteers, as well as scale-up and optimization of the DP-b99 manufacturing process.
