Xigen is developing intracellular peptide therapeutics for the treatment of stroke, myocardial infarction and cancer.
Xigen is a Swiss biopharmaceutical company spin-off from the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) founded in 2002 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The company is based on over 7 years of comprehensive research activities in the field of intracellular peptide research and JNK inhibition.
Xigen focuses on the acute or short-term treatment of major debilitating pathologies
XG-102 administered 6 h after occlusion reduces stroke lesion volume (yellow zone) by more than 90% in validated animal models
XG-102 administered 6 h after occlusion in an adult mice reperfusion model of stroke significantly (p = 0.0001) reduced the lesion volume (yelllow zone) by more than 90%
DISEASE FOCUS
Xigen focuses on major debilitating pathologies that are unmet medical needs plaguing humanity:
Stroke
· Third leading cause of death in major industrialized countries.
· Overall incidence of stroke in US/EU: 2 million patients per annum.
· Probability of disease onset increases with age.
· 20% of stroke patients do not survive more than 1 month.
· A third of those who are alive after 6 months are dependent on others.
· There is currently no neuroprotectants on the market for the treatment of
stroke.
Cancer
· Second-leading cause of death in in industrialized countries.
· 1.2 million new cases of cancer are diagnosed each year in the US;approximately
563,000 patients die each year of cancer.
· With the advancing age of the population, cancer prevalence in the major
markets is expected to rise to 14 million by 2009.
Myocardial infarction
· 12.6 million patients in the US have a history of coronary heart disease (CHD).
· Each year, there are over 1.1 million episodes of CHD
Xigen focuses on the acute or short-term treatment of major debilitating pathologies that underly unmet medical needs plaguing humanity:
*Stroke (3rd cause of death and disability)
*Cancer (2nd cause of death and disability)
*Myocardial infarction (1st cause of death and disability)
By coupling an active peptidic effector moiety to a selective intracellular peptide transporter, cell targeting and penetration of the therapeutic agent are enhanced. Moreover, d-TAT, Xigen's proprietary intracellular peptide transporter, selectively targets the cell nucleus; therefore, all effectors peptides coupled to d-TAT are readily transported through the cell into the nucleus, where the effector peptide can exercise its pharmacological activity.
Xigen is currently developing three classes of cell-permeable therapeutics generated by its proprietary technology:
·XG-102: a peptidic antiapoptotic for the treatment of stroke and myocardial infarction. XG-102 will enter the clinical trials in 2005.
·XG-311 sq: a new class of peptidic conjugates for the treatment of cancer. XG-311 is currently being tested in vitro by a renowned oncology CRO.
