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Cystic Fibrosis expert from Imperial named on clinical advisory board for Proteostasis Therapeutics

Proteostasis is a drug discovery company addressing diseases caused by defects in protein folding, trafficking and clearance for orphan and neurodegenerative diseases, including Cystic Fibrosis (CF). Professor Jane Davies, from Imperial’s National Heart and Lung Institute, will join five other world leading experts on their CF clinical advisory board.

The panel will serve as a strategic resource for the upcoming selection and study of the Company’s leading compounds that double the activity of the drug combination ivacaftor/lumacaftor in the gold-standard test using Human Bronchial Epithelial cells (HBE cell assay). This drug combination has been shown to significantly improve lung function in sufferers with the most common CF mutation, F508del/F508del, and it is hoped that the compounds selected for further development can build on this.

Meenu Chhabra, President and Chief Executive Officer of Proteostasis Therapeutics said:

“The knowledge and experience that our inaugural clinical advisory board members bring to Proteostasis will be invaluable not only in the selection process of which of our proprietary PTI CFTR compounds should proceed to clinical development, but also in providing guidance on the design and conduct of the future clinical trials of selected drug candidates.”

World leading Cystic Fibrosis expertise

Professor Davies is Professor of Paediatric Respirology and Experimental Medicine at Imperial College London and an Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine at the Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust. She is the site co-PI for the European CF Society Clinical Trials Network and leads their Lung Clearance Index Core facility. She has experience in clinical trial design for both investigator-initiated and pharma-sponsored studies and has advised companies in this area as a consultant through ICON on many occasions.

Professor Jane Davies comments:

“It is exciting to see so many pharmaceutical companies taking up the challenge of drug development in this area. I am delighted that companies such as Proteostasis are recognising the benefits of building relationships with clinicians and investigators in the CF field and of working collaboratively, from an early stage, towards optimal clinical trial design of novel drugs.”

Please click here for the Proteostasis press release.

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