Zafgen's Epoxide Clears A Hurdle

I wrote here about Zafgen and their covalent Met-Ap2 inhibitor beloranib. Word is out today that the compound has passed its first Phase II trial handily, so score one for covalent epoxides as drug candidates. Zafgen has followed up promising results from early-stage work on its weight drug beloranib with a stellar Phase II study that tracked rapid weight loss among the severely obese, with one group shedding an average of 22 pounds in 12 weeks. CEO Tom Hughes says the mid-stage success clears a path to a Phase IIb trial that can fine tune the dose while taking more time to gauge the longterm impact of its treatment on weight. And the data harvest sets the right tone for ongoing talks with investors about a new financing round for the biotech. Efficacy, though, doesn't seem to have been in much doubt with this compound. Phase III will be the big one, because the worry here will be some sort of funny longer-term toxicity. No one's quite sure what inhibiting that enzyme will do (other than this pretty impressive weight loss), and a covalent drug (even a relatively benign and selective one like an epoxide) is always going to have questions around it until it's proven itself in human tox. But so far, so good. One thing that beloranib has going for it is that patients would presumably take for a relatively limited course of therapy and then try to keep the weight off on their own. That's a big distinction, toxicologically. On one end of the spectrum, you've got your one-time-us...
Source: In the Pipeline - Category: Chemists Tags: Diabetes and Obesity Source Type: blogs