NEW YORK and LONDON, January 5, 2016
Akari Therapeutics (NASDAQ: AKTX), an emerging growth, development-stage biopharmaceutical company, announced an update from its 28 day non-human primate (NHP) safety study that Coversin demonstrated complete inhibition of complement C5 whether measured by Elisa CH50 or Sheep Reb Blood Cell (SRBC) lytic assay (see Figure 1 below). The study tested Coversin daily subcutaneous injection for 28 days at a low and high dose versus placebo in 24 non-human primates and demonstrated no safety issues, adverse events or injection site reactions. Coversin is a second-generation complement inhibitor that acts on complement component-C5, preventing release of C5a and formation of C5b-9 (also known as the membrane attack complex or MAC). C5 inhibition is growing in importance in a range of rare autoimmune diseases related to dysregulation of the complement component of the immune system, including paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (aHUS), and Guillain Barré syndrome (GBS).
