NEW YORK – Maze Therapeutics on Friday said it has treated the first patient in the company's Phase II HORIZON trial, in which it is evaluating MZE829 in patients with kidney disease who carry two copies of one of two high-risk APOL1 gene variants.
MZE829 is an oral, small molecule APOL1 inhibitor that mimics the protective effects of a rare variant of the APOL1 gene that blocks APOL1 proteins from damaging kidney cells.
In the open-label HORIZON basket trial, South San Francisco, California-based Maze will enroll patients with APOL1-mediated kidney disease and stratify them according to clinical phenotype and level of proteinuria. The firm will also enroll patients with this type of kidney disease and type 2 diabetes. As the primary endpoint, investigators will monitor reduction of proteinuria, or elevated levels of the protein in urine.
"By evaluating MZE829 across a wider population and organized by cohorts, we aim to demonstrate proof of concept and refine patient selection for future pivotal trials," Harold Bernstein, Maze's president of R&D and chief medical officer, said in a statement.
Maze, which earlier this year shared plans to go public, anticipates an interim proof-of-concept data readout in early 2026.