Alkahest � AKST4290 WetAMD

Alkahest, a Grifols company, was founded in San Carlos, California. Steven Braithwaite is both CEO and CSO. Chronokines are proteins that increase or decrease with age. Alkahest, through proteome decoding methods is developing clinical candidates that increase or decrease the levels of key circulating chronokines to either promote innate and natural restorative biological processes or inhibit pathological degenerative processes. These therapeutics include both traditional pharmaceutical modalities as well as highly selected and refined plasma fractions and other methods for antagonizing or supplementing the most biologically active chronokines. Current clinical trials are testing our therapeutic approaches for a range of age-related medical conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Age-Related Macular Degeneration, post-surgical recovery and others. Alkahest is developing AKST4290, an inhibitor against CCR3, the natural receptor for eotaxin. AKST4290 is an orally effective drug designed to block eotaxin from binding to its G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) CCR3. CCR3 plays an important modulatory role in inflammation, immune cell recruitment, and neovascularization; processes important for the pathogenesis of wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD). Importantly, AKST4290 is a small molecule that is easy to administer orally as a pill twice a day. This represents a significant convenience benefit for patients in the diseases studied. AKST4290 is being studied as a treatment for wet AMD, the leading cause of blindness in people over 60 in developed countries. Two Phase 2a clinical trials for AKST4290 in neovascular AMD were completed in 2018: one in naïve patients and one in refractory wet AMD patients.