Commencement of Clinical Tria

RNS Number : 1886X

Provexis PLC

11 August 2009

 



11 August 2009    

Provexis plc

('Provexis' or the 'Company')

COMMENCEMENT OF CLINICAL TRIAL FOR CROHN'S DISEASE

Provexis plc (PXS.L), the life-science business that discovers, develops and licenses scientifically-proven functional food, medical food and dietary supplement technologies, announces the commencement of a clinical trial for its NSP#3G plantain medical food for Crohn’s disease patients.

 

Our results announcement of 9 June 2009 updated the Clinical Trials Authorisation received from the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. We have since successfully completed the necessary pre-trial processes and can now announce a two-centre trial on Crohn’s disease patients in remission will commence on 18 August 2009. The trial will last for approximately 18 months, with 72 patients taking part.

 

Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract causing a wide variety of symptoms. It affects between 400,000 and 600,000 in North America and estimates of incidence in Northern Europe range from 27 to 48 per 100,000 people. There is no known pharmaceutical or surgical cure for Crohn’s disease and treatment is restricted to controlling symptoms, maintaining remission and preventing relapse. The Company believes that its medical food technology will successfully maintain remission. The market for Crohn’s disease treatments is estimated at $1.7bn annually.

With the trial now starting and combined with recently obtained healthy human data, the Company will now commence seeking to identify potential global license or co-development partners to address this substantial market opportunity

Stephen Moon, Chief Executive Officer of Provexis plc, commented:

'Following our recent industry-first European Article 13(5) health claim approval for our Fruitflow anti-thrombotic technology, this further underpins Provexis' capability in developing high quality and scientifically-proven intellectual property. Our new technology addresses an important patient need for a debilitating disease where no effective medical food products for maintaining remission are available currently. Laboratory and human trial work to date has been very promising and we look forward to successful clinical data from this important trial.'  

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For further information please contact:

Stephen Moon, Chief Executive

Provexis plc                                        Tel:    [phone]

Tom Griffiths/Alasdair Younie           Tel:    [phone]

Arbuthnot Securities

 

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