NEW YORK – C4X Discovery on Monday said it will use a genetic signature it recently discovered to identify best responders to an a4β7 inhibitor under development for treating inflammatory bowel disease.
Manchester, UK-headquartered C4XD used its PatientSeek platform to identify this genetic signature within a large dataset of genetic and other health information from patients who received vedolizumab, an a4β7 integrin antibody treatment for ulcerative colitis sold by Takeda under the brand name Entyvio and available in generic forms. The analysis showed that this genetic signature can separate patients who are likely to respond to vedolizumab from nonresponders.
C4XD did not disclose the specific genes that comprise this response-predictive signature but said it is "based on genetic variation in the noncoding regions of DNA."
"We will utilize the data's predictive power for use in future clinical trials for our own small molecule a4β7 integrin program," C4XD Executive Chairman Clive Dix said in a statement, "and we will take this precision approach to progress our growing pipeline, including our TNFα and PAD4 programs." According to C4XD's pipeline, its a4β7 inhibitor is approaching investigational new drug-enabling studies.
The company launched the PatientSeek platform earlier this year on the back of a research collaboration and validation project with the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia. PatientSeek uses the Taxonomy3 technology to analyze patients' genetic information and other clinical data from electronic health records and identify genetic signatures associated with treatment response.
C4XD said identifying responder populations should lead to smaller and more successful clinical trials that are targeted to appropriate patients.