MitoImmune Therapeutics Inc. announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared its investigational new drug (IND) application for MIT-001, an innovative new drug candidate for the treatment of oral mucositis.

MitoImmune plans to initiate a randomized, double–blind, placebo–controlled, multi–center trial in the first half of this year to evaluate the safety and efficacy of three different doses of MIT-001 compared to the placebo in prevention of OM in 60 patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) who are undergoing concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) in the US and South Korea.

CCRT as a standard therapy for the treatment of a number of cancers can cause various side effects during the patient's treatment process. One of the most serious side effects, oral mucositis, accompanied by intensive inflammation and necrosis in the oral cavity, leads to large restrictions on the patient's dietary intake, increases the risk of severe infection, and even acts as a serious obstacle to CCRT. The unmet medical needs in developed countries remain very high, but there is no effective medical treatment for oral mucositis.

"We are very pleased to be advancing our therapy of anti-inflammatory and anti-necrotic agent based on the novel action mechanism of mitochondria-targeted reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenger into the clinical development in our quest to bring an innovative, better treatment to the patients who need them," said Soon-Ha Kim, Ph.D., chief executive officer of MitoImmune.

In addition to phase 2 clinical trial for the patients with HNSCC in the United States and Korea, Mitoimune has recently received the IND approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) in Korea for a phase 2 clinical trial, to verify the safety and efficacy for OM in the lymphoma/ multiple myeloma patients with chemotherapy (CT) undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). The first HSCT patient administration is planned for the 2nd quarter of this year.

MIT-001 is a novel class of anti-inflammatory and anti-necrotic agent, specifically scavenging ROS in the mitochondria. This action mechanism of MIT-001 is expected to effectively suppress massive inflammation like oral mucositis occurring in the necrotic ulcers of oral mucous via removing excessive mitochondrial ROS, a major contributing factor in the CCRT-induced inflammation and necrosis.

MitoImmune is a leading biotech company focusing on the development of mitochondrial therapeutics providing a breakthrough for life-threatening diseases based on its proprietary structural platform technology, which was scientifically verified through more than 40 published papers. MitoImmune is seeking to expand its R&D pipelines to chronic inflammatory disorders and neurodegenerative diseases.