Jun 11, 2021: Modus Therapeutics Holding AB, a company developing innovative treatments for patients with high unmet medical needs, announces that it has entered a clinical research collaboration with a team led by Professor Kathryn Maitland from Imperial College London, UK.
The project aims at researching the effect of the Company’s proprietary drug sevuparin in patients with severe malaria.
Modus is currently developing sevuparin in sepsis/septic shock, and other conditions with systemic inflammation, with severe malaria being a further example. These conditions constitute major healthcare problems.
Severe malaria, like sepsis/septic shock, remains an unaddressed medical problem in the parts of the world with endemic malaria.
The condition primarily affects young children infected with the parasites. In severe malaria, the parasitic infection causes a systemic inflammation syndrome that shares similarities with sepsis and other severe conditions resulting in uncontrolled systemic inflammation, which can then progress into shock and multi-organ failure.
The malaria project is funded by a collaborator grant in science from Wellcome (209265/Z/17/Z) to Professor Maitland’s research group at KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Programme, Kilifi Kenya and to the international consortium “Severe Malaria Africa -A consortium for Research and Trials” (SMAART), the goal of which is to identify and research new treatments for severe malaria.
Under the collaboration, Modus will supply sevuparin to a future clinical study in patients with severe malaria. Sevuparin has already shown promising effects on the malaria parasite in patients with uncomplicated malaria and in human samples (Leitgeb et al 2017, Saiwaew et al 2017).
Professor Kathryn Maitland of Imperial College London on the planned clinical study:
“Given the potential of sevuparin to be transformative in improving current outcomes from severe malaria, a large group of specialist doctors in severe malaria research and clinical trials suggested that sevuparin should be tested in children with severe malaria.
All members of the group helped to design this clinical trial (Pan African Trials Registry PACTR202007890194806), which will be conducted on the high dependency ward in Kilifi, Kenya.”
John Öhd, CEO of Modus Therapeutics, commenting on the collaboration said:
“I am very excited to announce this ground-breaking collaborative effort designed to evaluate the potential of sevuparin as a new treatment for the severe form of malaria.
This work will also provide an important opportunity for Modus to understand more about sevuparin’s potential to tackle disorders involving systemic inflammation in parallel with our lead indication, sepsis.
We are also honored to be able to participate in this work led by Professor Maitland, a world-leader in clinical malaria research and which has the backing of institutions such as Imperial College London and Wellcome.”
