CombiGene’s pain project receives new scientific support
At the beginning of the year, CombiGene entered into a collaboration agreement with the Danish company Zyneyro for the development of a treatment for severe temporary and chronic pain conditions. A new doctoral thesis at the University of Copenhagen now shows robust pain relief with the current drug candidates in experimental models.
Gene therapy company CombiGene has, since signing the potentially lucrative collaboration and licensing agreement with US-based Spark Therapeutics, had the ambition of entering into more collaborations. The beginning of 2023 has seen this ambition fulfilled for CombiGene. The company partnered with the Danish biotech company Zyneyro, founded by researchers from the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Copenhagen and a group of entrepreneurs.
For the collaboration, the parties focus on the joint development of new drug candidates with more effective pain relief. These are also meant to have the added benefit of not producing the side effects that today’s treatments often give rise to. The companies currently have two projects: a peptide treatment, COZY01, for temporary pain conditions, and COZY02, a gene therapy treatment with potentially lifelong effect.
New doctoral thesis strengthens the companies’ hypothesis
Recently, Gith Noes-Holt at the University of Copenhagen successfully defended her thesis “Development and investigation of AAV gene therapies and peptide inhibitors treating chronic pain.” The thesis is based on four separate scientific manuscripts, two of which are already published in reputable journals, and report robust pain relief. The new findings relate to both COZY01 and COZY02 in experimental models.
Noes-Holt’s thesis provides a presentation of preclinical efficacy data from treatment with the peptide that constitutes the drug candidate COZY01. This is a new molecule, but with some improved properties compared to previous versions. According to CombiGene and Zyneyro, this makes it better suited for drug development.
The thesis also presents an effective and long-term pain relief with gene therapy treatment in preclinical studies.
In a comment, Alvar Grönberg, Senior Program Director at CombiGene, says:
The content of BioStock’s news and analyses is independent but the work of BioStock is to a certain degree financed by life science companies. The above article concerns a company from which BioStock has received financing.»The data presented in Gith Noes-Holt’s dissertation are very positive. At CombiGene, we now look forward to continuing the exciting development of this promising programme together with our colleagues at Zyneyro and expect to be able to take the peptide treatment COZY01 to clinical development within in a few years. The gene therapy COZY02 needs additional time to reach the same point in its development but is from a medical perspective at least as interesting as COZY01«
