Oxford BioMedica’s Innurex shows promise in spinal cord injury

These findings are significant as very few products have been able to show nerve repair in models of spinal cord injury and no products to date have achieved this in the clinical setting.

In the preclinical study, Innurex stimulated cellular repair in the form of nerve regrowth across the injury. Functional repair was assessed by measuring time taken or movement during certain tasks, such as ladder crossing and grid walking. Following Innurex treatment, there was a statistically significant improvement in functional ability compared to placebo on most measures.

These new data add to previous observations in preclinical models of avulsion (stretch) injury and suggest that Innurex may be useful in the clinical treatment of both stretch injury and the technically more challenging spinal cord damage.

“These new results substantially strengthen the preclinical data set for Innurex,” said Oxford BioMedica’s CEO, professor Alan Kingsman. “We are now working towards an assessment of how to move Innurex into initial phase I/II clinical trials so that this innovative product can be evaluated for the treatment of patients with these devastating injuries as quickly as possible.”

Innurex delivers the RAR2 gene to damaged nerve cells using Oxford BioMedica’s proprietary LentiVector gene delivery technology, which has also recently been the subject of a licensing deal with Pfizer. The RAR2 gene causes nerve cells to ‘sprout’ new nerve fibres that have the potential to remake connections that may restore both sensation and movement to afflicted limbs.

The preclinical evaluation of Innurex is part of an ongoing collaboration with scientists at King’s College London.