Greg Duncan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Celtaxsys, provides an overview of his company and it’s focus on cystic fibrosis (CF), an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of about 70,000 children and adults worldwide.
Celtaxsys is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical development company focused on advancing novel foundational therapies to treat inflammation in rare, orphan designated diseases. The company’s lead investigational therapy is acebilustat.
Acebilustat is a once-daily oral drug candidate progressing to Phase 3 development. It is a novel small molecule inhibitor of Leukotriene A4 Hydrolase (LTA4H), the key enzyme in the production of the potent inflammatory mediator Leukotriene B4 (LTB4). LTB4 can create an over activation of neutrophil mediated immune response and inflammation and has been strongly implicated in the pathogenesis of many diseases involving excessive inflammation, including cystic fibrosis (CF). More specifically, an overactive immune response driven by neutrophils results in excessive inflammation in the CF lung. This leads to irreversible damage resulting in excessive morbidity and mortality in CF patients. Acebilustat is designed to modulate the neutrophil driven immune response bringing the inflammation to homeostasis, preventing overactive inflammation from occurring, and thus could be potentially helpful in CF patients.
