Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 26, 2013 – Kiadis Pharma B.V., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing treatments for blood cancers, announced today that it will receive an innovation credit of up to €3 million from AgentschapNL, a division of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, to support the Phase II clinical development of Kiadis Pharma’s lead pipeline product, ATIR™.
Kiadis Pharma is currently conducting a Phase II international multi-center study with ATIR™, its cell based product for blood cancers, in order to confirm and extend previous Phase I/II results.
Manfred Ruediger, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Kiadis Pharma, commented: “We are delighted to receive this credit for ATIR™ as these awards are only made to innovative projects with strong commercial prospects. The grant allows us to accelerate our clinical development in this important therapeutic area of blood cancer treatment which has high medical importance for patients.”
About ATIR™
ATIR™ is a cell based medicinal product enabling stem cell transplantations using partially mismatched (haploidentical) family members as donors for patients suffering from blood cancer who lack a suitable standard of care matched donor. Stem cell transplantation is the only potentially curative treatment for many patients but a matching donor is available for only half of the patients in need. ATIR™ thus has the potential to address this unmet need and to make stem cell transplantations available for all patients worldwide.
Those T-cells in a haploidentical graft which would cause Graft-versus-Host-Disease (GvHD) are selectively eliminated using proprietary technology to produce ATIR™. ATIR™ is administered as an adjunctive treatment after a haploidentical stem cell transplantation facilitating early immune reconstitution without causing life-threatening (acute) GvHD.
In a Phase I/II study with ATIR™, safety and proof of concept were confirmed in terms of absence of grade III/IV GvHD, reduced rates of infection, reduced Transplant Related Mortality and high Overall Survival.
ATIR™ is currently in Phase II clinical development and has been granted Orphan Drug Designation both in the EU and the USA. In these regions, 20,000 to 25,000 patients a year are unable to find a suitable standard of care matched donor. Together, both regions represent a combined primary market potential of more than EUR 1 billion per year.
