Aimed at advancing the company’s first clinical candidate into preclinical studies, the three-year grant will particularly support non-human primate efficacy studies, mechanism of action experiments, and discovery of a next-generation molecule.
Tunitas president and chief executive officer Nolan Sigal said, "Starting with the ground-breaking work of Dr. Andrew Saxon, Tunitas’ co-founder and Emeritus Professor at the UCLA-Geffen School of Medicine, we have successfully advanced the GE2 Program to the point where we expect to begin human clinical trials in 2014."
Designed for long-term subcutaneous therapy, the compound is a member of the GE2 family and is the fusion protein with dual mechanism.
Suppressing the production of allergic antibodies through its interaction with IgE-producing lymphocytes, GE2 directly inhibits basophil and mast cell function, the primary cellular mediators of allergic disease.