LEXINGTON, Mass. and AMSTERDAM, Feb. 07, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — uniQure N.V. (NASDAQ: QURE), a leading gene therapy company advancing transformative therapies for patients with severe medical needs, today announced the dosing of the first two patients in its European open-label Phase Ib/II clinical trial of AMT-130, a potential one-time gene-therapy approach for the treatment of Huntington’s disease. The clinical trial is taking place at several sites in Poland, the United Kingdom and Germany.
“We are very pleased to expand the clinical development of AMT-130 and to build on our ongoing experience in the Phase I/II clinical trial in the United States,” stated Ricardo Dolmetsch, Ph.D., president of research and development at uniQure. “We expect to complete patient enrollment in this European study by the end of the year and to provide safety and target-engagement data from the full 10-patient, low-dose cohort in the U.S. trial in the second quarter of this year.”
“The Interventional Neurotherapy Center (INC) at Mazowiecki Szpital Bródnowski Hospital is the first and only center in Europe currently performing MRI-guided infusions of gene therapies,” said Professor Miroslaw Zabek M.D. Ph.D., the chairperson of the department of neurosurgery and INC. “Our team is extremely excited to participate in this important Huntington’s disease scientific research alongside our colleagues in the U.S. and to dose the first patients in the European clinical trial of AMT-130.”
“Since 1995, our center at the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology (IPiN) has offered genetic testing and clinical care to Polish patients with Huntington’s disease,” said Dr. Grzegorz Witkowski M.D. Ph.D., IPiN principal investigator. “Our patients have been very interested in the potential for a one-time treatment to stop progression of the disease and, given the recent setbacks in Huntington’s disease research it means a lot to the Polish HD Community to be able to enroll the first patients in this first EU gene therapy trial.”
The European Phase Ib/II clinical trial of AMT-130 for the treatment of Huntington’s disease will explore the safety, proof of concept, and dosing in 15 total patients with early manifest Huntington’s disease split into a five person, low-dose open-label cohort, followed by a nine patient, higher-dose open-label cohort. All patients will be dosed with AMT-130.
The multi-center study consists of an initial 6-month post-treatment study period followed by long-term follow-up for five years. Patients will receive a single administration of AMT-130 through MRI-guided, convection-enhanced stereotactic neurosurgical delivery directly into the striatum (caudate and putamen). The study is currently open for recruitment at IPiN and surgery at INC in Poland and is expected to expand to referral and surgical sites in the United Kingdom and Germany. Additional details are available on www.clinicaltrialsregister.eu (EudraCT 2020-001461-36)
Source: UniQure
