Cardurion Pharmaceuticals touted positive data for its heart failure drug and announced plans to pursue two more trials, three years after the Massachusetts biotech scored a $300 million investment from Bain & Co.
Over the weekend, Cardurion presented positive data at the European Society of Cardiology’s Heart Failure Congress in Lisbon for CRD-740 in 60 patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). About half of patients with chronic heart failure have HFrEF, according to Cardurion.
The CARDINAL-HF Phase 2a trial hit its primary endpoint, showing a statistically significant median increase in a biomarker called plasma cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) after four weeks of treatment. There were also “statistically significant” increases in urinary cGMP in patients who took CRD-740, a PDE9 inhibitor and the company’s lead candidate.
James Udelson“These very promising data from the first Phase 2 proof-of-concept clinical trial of a PDE9 inhibitor in patients with heart failure represent an important next step in the development of this novel mechanism,” James Udelson, the study’s principal investigator and chief of cardiology at Tufts Medical Center, said in a statement.
Back in 2021, Adam Koppel, partner at Bain Capital Life Sciences, told Endpoints News that one of the things that drew him to Cardurion was the theory that a PDE9 inhibitor could beat out Novartis’ blockbuster heart combo Entresto, which includes a neprilysin inhibitor.
Cardurion in-licensed CRD-740 from Astellas in 2018. Now it’s moving the drug into two Phase 2 clinical trials with a total of 640 patients: a dose-ranging trial in patients with HFrEF, and another in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).
Cardurion CEO Peter Lawrence said the data “suggest that PDE9 inhibition has the potential to provide benefit to patients when administered alone or in combination with guideline directed medical therapy and ultimately become standard of care for patients with both types of heart failure.”
The company is also developing three CaMKII inhibitors in undisclosed cardiovascular disease targets, among others.