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news.The UK Government's Biomedical Catalyst has granted £2.4m ($3.8m), under its £180m funding initiative, to KalVista Pharmaceuticals to further develop oral plasma kallikrein inhibitor as a treatment for diabetic macular edema (DME).
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In addition, the company will use the fund to complete pre-clinical development of oral plasma DME drug and prepare for Phase I clinical development.
Plasma kallikrein, which has been suggested as a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-inependent target for the treatment of DME, is an enzyme which showed elevations in the vitreous of DME patients, thus causing excessive vascular permeability in models of diabetes.
KalVista Pharmaceuticals CEO Andrew Crockett said the grant will allow the company to bring to the clinic a new treatment that will improve outcomes for patients with diabetes.
"The oral programme will run alongside our $2.2 million collaboration with the JDRF, the leading global organization focused on type 1 diabetes (T1D) research, for the development of an intravitreal (IVT) injectable form of plasma kallikrein inhibitor.
"That collaboration is progressing well with first in human trials planned for next year.
"We look forward to similarly rapid progress under the Biomedical Catalyst grant."