Herantis Pharma - HER-096: A new name in the pipeline

xCDNF pre-clinical candidate selected Further pre-clinical development to follow Positive pipeline progress HER-096 is the candidate selected for xCDNF programme Herantis announced today the selection of the pre-clinical candidate for its xCDNF programme. xCDNF (hereon referred to as HER-096) is the second asset Herantis are developing for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases with a primary focus on Parkinson’s disease. It is a synthetic peptidomimetic version of CDNF (the biological lead candidate of Herantis that has been in clinical testing), which has been engineered to allow penetration of the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) when given by subcutaneous injection while retaining the effect of the full CDNF molecule. Herantis state that HER-096 was selected based on compelling preclinical data showing effective BBB-penetration and favourable effects on toxic alpha-synuclein aggregation, associated neuroinflammation and proteostasis.

Further pre-clinical development to follow With lead candidate selection completed, further pre-clinical development of HER-096 will follow during 2021, before IND-enabling studies and clinical trial preparations can commence in 2022, with the aim of a clinical Ph I/II study in 2023. For the CDNF programme the next milestone will be selection of the new formulation followed by pre-clinical safety and tox studies before it too can move into the clinic towards H2’22-H1’23. Positive pipeline progress With the re-focusing of Herantis solely on neurological diseases following the lymfactin programme readout (see ‘Inconclusive topline results from AdeLE study’ 02/03/21) and the earlier pivot away from intracerebral delivery of CDNF necessitating new pre-clinical work (see ‘Taking a closer look at the new R&D strategy’ from 09/02/21) the Herantis share has been trading down/flat.

Today’s announcement demonstrating pipeline progress is much welcome news and should be supportive for the share.