TIKOMED’S ILB® resolves inflammatory scarring and promotes functional tissue repair in data published in npj Regenerative Medicine

Viken – 7 January 2021 – A new study on TIKOMED’s lead drug candidate, ILB®, was published in npj Regenerative Medicine today. The peer-reviewed data from rodent and human disease models showed that ILB® leads to tissue remodelling, reduced fibrosis and functional tissue regeneration – observations indicating the potential of ILB® to alleviate fibrotic diseases. 

Professor Ann Logan, from the University of Warwick, leader of the research team and senior author of the publication, said, “Inflammation plays a vital role in healing, but when it becomes uncontrolled the immune system starts damaging healthy cells, tissues, and organs causing scarring that compromises function. Excessive inflammation has adverse consequences in the brain after trauma and stroke and, when it becomes chronic, also plays an important role in most progressive neurodegenerative conditions, including motor neuron diseases, dementias and glaucoma where scarring leads to the death of retinal nerve cells. ILB® represents an exciting new therapy that not only controls inflammation to prevent the development of fibrotic scarring, but also activates tissue remodelling processes so that established scar tissue is dissolved. As such, it represents a potential step-change in the treatment of many conditions where inflammatory scarring compromises tissue function”.

TIKOMED’s study, conducted at the School of Biomedical Sciences, Institute of Clinical Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK is the first to demonstrate that subcutaneous injections of ILB®, which has already demonstrated safety in humans, can resolve inflammation and arising/established fibrosis in both rodent and human models of inflammation and fibrosis, thereby supporting functional tissue regeneration. As a consequence, in the ocular disease model evaluated, inflammatory fibrosis was resolved, intra ocular pressure was rapidly normalised and compromised retinal cells were protected from progressive death.

Dr Lisa Hill, principal investigator from the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Birmingham and joint first author of the publication commented, “I am really excited by these results and they have helped us to further understand the actions of ILB® in preclinical models of fibrotic diseases. I believe there is a lot of potential for ILB® to help reduce fibrosis within the eye.”

Fibrotic diseases – diseases that feature fibrosis or scarring of organ tissue are a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide.

“The publication of this peer-reviewed data from our ILB® development program in a leading journal like npj Regenerative Medicine, further validates our ongoing efforts toward developing innovative therapeutics for treating acute and chronic degenerative neurological and ophthalmic diseases”, said Anders Kristensson, CEO of TIKOMED. “The study provides exciting, new evidence for the multi-modal mechanism of action of ILB®, which when further developed, hopefully will translate to much needed treatment improvements for patients suffering from a wide array of fibrotic diseases.”

npj Regenerative Medicine is an open access, online-only journal dedicated to publishing the highest quality research into ways to help the human body repair, replace, restore and regenerate damaged tissues and organs. For full study details please access the publication in npj Regenerative Medicine. ILB ® resolves inflammatory scarring and promotes functional tissue repair | npj Regenerative Medicine (nature.com)