CINCINNATI, OH, USA I February 28, 2018 I Aerpio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on advancing first-in-class treatments for ocular diseases, announced today that renal function data from the TIME-2 Phase 2a Study of AKB-9778 in the treatment of patients with diabetic macular edema (DME) was presented at the Keystone Symposium on Reducing the Burden of Diabetes Related End-Organ Injury in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The company has previously presented data on improvement of diabetic retinopathy after three months of AKB-9778 therapy. This presentation provides details from a retrospective analysis of renal function in AKB-9778-treated patients from the TIME-2 study who had a urine albumin/creatinine ratio (UACR) greater than normal at baseline. In this analysis, AKB-9778-treated patients had a 21% decrease (improvement) in UACR at the end of treatment compared to their pre-treatment levels. In addition, 6 of 49 (12%) patients improved to a less severe degree of albuminuria at the end of the study (i.e., macroalbuminuria improving to microalbuminuria or normal, or microalbuminuria to normal).

Kevin Peters, MD, Aerpio’s Chief Scientific Officer, who presented the data, said, “These preliminary results, based on a post-hoc analysis, are consistent with the expected effects of Tie2 activation and suggest a possible role for AKB-9778 to protect the kidney vasculature in patients with diabetes. The study was only three months in duration and we are prospectively following markers of renal function in our on-going 48-week TIME-2b trial of AKB-9778 in diabetic retinopathy.”

About Aerpio Pharmaceuticals

Aerpio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on advancing first-in-class treatments for ocular diseases. The Company’s lead compound, AKB‐9778, is a small molecule activator of the Tie2 pathway and is in clinical development for the treatment of non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy. For more information please visit www.aerpio.com.

About AKB-9778

AKB-9778 is being developed as a subcutaneous injection for the treatment of non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy. AKB-9778 binds to and inhibits vascular endothelial protein tyrosine phosphatase (VE-PTP), an important negative regulator of Tie2. Decreased Tie2 activity causes vascular instability in many diseases including diabetes. AKB-9778 activates the Tie2 receptor irrespective of extracellular levels of its binding ligands, angiopoietin-1 (agonist) or angiopoietin-2 (antagonist), and may be the most efficient pharmacologic approach to maintain normal Tie2 activation.

SOURCE: Aerpio Pharmaceuticals