Inverseon Announces Positive Asthma Study

Inverseon publicates a positive phase IIa clinical trial in asthma.

In the article by Hanania et al., in Pulmonary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, vol. 21, (2008), pp. 134-141, entitled, "The safety and effects of the beta-blocker, nadolol, in mild asthma: An open-label pilot study," mild asthmatics were treated for 9 weeks. All subjects tolerated the drug, and 8 of 10 subjects experienced a clinically meaningful, dose-related, reduction in airway hyper-responsiveness.

"To our knowledge, this is the first peer-reviewed publication of a clinical trial testing a beta-blocker for the treatment of asthma," commented Richard Bond, PhD, Scientific Founder of Inverseon. "These results lay the groundwork for continuing safety and efficacy studies for a drug that is normally withheld from asthmatics. A similar story played out 10 years ago in congestive heart failure where certain blocker drugs that were once contraindicated are now on the market as the best drugs we have ever had at decreasing mortality in heart failure."

"From receptor theory to animal data and now to clinical data the Inverseon approach is very consistent. In our animal asthma models chronic dosing of beta inverse agonists -- which are a subset of beta blockers -- resulted in up-regulation of lung beta receptors, while reducing inflammation and airway hyper-responsiveness. The fact that we are seeing some of these same changes in human asthmatic subjects is exciting and suggests we may have a way to counteract some of the negative aspects of long-acting beta-agonists and steroids when used in combination with INV102. The data also supports Inverseon's reformulation program for oral controlled-release INV102," commented William J. Garner, MD, Chairman of Inverseon.