Trophos SA, a clinical stage pharma company developing innovative therapeutics for indications with under-served needs in neurology and cardiology, announced the initiation of a phase 1b study of olesoxime in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients as a complementary therapy to their treatment with interferon beta.

The clinical trial is designed to demonstrate the safety and tolerability of olesoxime as a co-medication with immunomodulatory treatments, interferon beta being the most frequent first line therapy for relapsing remitting MS. The study will also be a pilot study to assess the feasibility of various magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedures to detect signs of neuroprotection and/or myelin repair in a multicenter trial. The clinical trial is in preparation for future large-scale clinical trials to assess efficacy of olesoxime to prevent progressive disability in MS patients.
 
The trial, led by professor Jean Pelletier, will be conducted in three leading MS clinical centers in France, located in Marseille (AP-HM CHU Timone), Rennes (CHU de Rennes) and Reims (CHU de Reims). Two MRI specialist labs (UMR CNRS 7339-CRMBM/CEMEREM in Marseille and INRIA VISAGES in Rennes) will analyze the imaging biomarker data acquired in the study.
 
"MS is a chronic inflammatory disease leading to demyelination and axonal degeneration in the central nervous system. Today there are a number of effective treatments to control these relapsing inflammatory episodes in MS; however, they have little effect on progressive disability in MS patients," said Dr. Rebecca Pruss, Trophos' chief scientific officer. "It is also now recognized that MS is a chronic neurodegenerative disease. It affects 2.5 million people globally and is the first cause of non-traumatic disability in young adults. As a result, there is a very high unmet need for agents to promote myelin repair and prevent the neurodegeneration that underlies progressive disability in MS."
 
"This study is expected to provide further evidence of the safety and tolerability of olesoxime as a complementary therapy to immunomodulatory treatments used by the majority of MS patients," said Dr. Pascal Longlade, Trophos' CMO. "We see this study as the first step in the development of olesoxime to prevent disability in both relapsing remitting as well as progressive forms of MS."
 
"MS disease progression has a market potential of over US$ 1 billion. Trophos hopes that gathering leading experts in MS and bringing our consortium based approach to MS will make a real difference to this so far unmet medical need," said Christine Placet, CEO, Trophos. "Trophos remains committed to bringing solutions to conditions like MS and SMA, as well as cardiac reperfusion injury."
 
Translate-MS-Repair is a two-year project aimed at the clinical translation of the results obtained in a previous ANR-funded project: MS-Repair (see below). The clinical Phase 1b study will be a randomized, placebo-controlled, double blind study to evaluate the effect of olesoxime in 42 relapsing remitting MS patients stably treated with all forms of interferon beta. The primary objective is to confirm the safety and tolerability of olesoxime in association with interferon beta. The primary outcome measure is the cumulative incidence of adverse events with the secondary outcome measures being total, new and enlarging brain lesions assessed by MRI. Besides these conventional MRI procedures, a range of non-conventional procedures will be explored including 23Na-MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, magnetization transfer imaging and magnetic resonance spectroscopy in order to assess their feasibility for use as biomarkers of neuroprotection and/or remyelination in a multicenter trial.

Olesoxime (previously known as TRO19622) is a mitochondrial targeted, cholesterol-like compound that is currently undergoing phase II clinical evaluation for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy. Olesoxime's safety and tolerability has already been tested in 15 clinical trials involving 968 patients or healthy volunteers and has proved to have an excellent safety profile.