Kahr Medical secures $500,000 from Hadasit and OCS

Kahr Medical’s drug development pipeline is built around the ‘trans signal converter proteins (TSCP)’ technology, a novel drug technology invented by Mark Tykocinski and licensed from the University of Pennsylvania. The financing will support further development of Kahr Medical’s product pipeline.

Kahr Medical has also selected two candidates from a group of validated TSCP compounds on which to initially focus. In the next six months the company plans to conduct preclinical studies of Kahr-101 and Kahr-102 at Hadassah University Hospital. Kahr plans to first initiate a clinical study of Kahr-101 as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis by 2010.

Kahr Medical has raised $1.5 million to date from Hadasit Bio-Holdings (HBL) and the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor of Israel (OCS). The company also plans to begin an external financing round before the end of 2009 to support its clinical program.

Noam Shani, CEO of Kahr Medical, said: TSCP molecules represent a paradigm-shift in drug development. TSCP drugs are unique, because they integrate two functional sides within the same molecule, unlike conventional biologicals that only have one functional side.

These two active sides allow TSCP drugs not only to block or induce cell signals, as conventional drugs do, but also to convert signals sent from one cell to another, which is especially beneficial for the manipulation of the immune system required for the treatment of autoimmune disease.