Update on PGN-EDO51 10 mg/kg Cohort
As of July 29, 2024, two participants have received a total of four doses at 10 mg/kg in the ongoing CONNECT1 study. To date, PGN-EDO51 has been generally well tolerated at this dose level and the Company expects to report initial results from the 10 mg/kg cohort in early 2025.
Update on CONNECT2-EDO51 Clinical Trial
Based on the data from CONNECT1, including PGN-EDO51’s emerging safety profile to date, the Company is working to optimize the design of the CONNECT2 Phase 2 double-blind, placebo-controlled 25-week multinational trial. The CONNECT2 clinical trial is open in the United Kingdom. The Company continues to engage with regulators in the European Union and expects to open the clinical trial in the United States by year-end.
Conference Call Details
PepGen will host a conference call and webcast today at 4:30 p.m. ET to review the data being presented. To access the call, please dial (866) 400-0049 and provide the Conference ID 9666330. A live webcast of the presentation will be available on the Events & Presentations section of the PepGen investor website, investors.pepgen.com.
About PGN-EDO51
PGN-EDO51, PepGen’s lead clinical candidate for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), utilizes the Company’s proprietary Enhanced Delivery Oligonucleotide (EDO) technology to deliver a therapeutic phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer (PMO) that is designed to target the root cause of this devastating disease. PGN-EDO51 is designed to skip exon 51 of the dystrophin transcript, an established therapeutic target for approximately 13% of DMD patients, thereby aiming to restore the open reading frame and enabling the production of a truncated, yet functional dystrophin protein. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted PGN-EDO51 both Orphan Drug and Rare Pediatric Disease Designations for the treatment of patients with DMD amenable to an exon-51 skipping approach.
About the CONNECT Clinical Program
CONNECT1-EDO51 is an open-label, multiple ascending dose Phase 2 trial designed to evaluate PGN-EDO51 at up to three different dose levels starting with 5 mg/kg administered intravenously once every four weeks for 12 weeks in patients with DMD amenable to an exon 51-skipping approach. The key endpoints for this trial are safety, dystrophin production and exon skipping. Multiple pharmacokinetic parameters are also being assessed as part of the trial protocol.
CONNECT2-EDO51 is a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multiple ascending dose, multinational Phase 2 trial designed to evaluate PGN-EDO51 at up to three different dose levels intravenously once every four weeks for 24 weeks in patients with DMD amenable to an exon 51-skipping approach. Endpoints included in this trial are safety, dystrophin production, exon skipping and clinical assessments of mobility, pulmonary function and quality of life.
About Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD)
DMD is an X-linked recessive muscle-wasting disease that predominantly affects males. This progressively debilitating and fatal disease is caused by genetic mutations in the gene encoding dystrophin, a protein critical for healthy muscle function, and is one of the most prevalent rare genetic diseases, with an incidence rate of approximately one in every 3,500 to 5,000 male births. DMD is characterized by progressive muscle weakness, which leads to patients losing the ability to walk, a loss of upper body function, cardiac issues and difficulties breathing. DMD is invariably fatal by young adulthood. Despite significant advances in treatments for this devastating disease, current exon skipping therapies are limited by poor delivery to muscle tissue nuclei and have yet to establish meaningful clinical benefit for DMD patients.