Galmed Pharma Announces an Expansion of its Activities to Cancer and major Cardiometabolic Diseases
Galmed Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:GLMD) Ltd. (Nasdaq: GLMD) (“Galmed” or the “Company”), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company for fibroinflammatory indications announced today that based on the recently published results from the Open-Label part of its Phase 3 NASH study, new scientific publications on the role of SCD1 as a critical metabolic signaling hub as well as an extended cash runway, it plans to broaden its drug development activities.
The planned expansion consists of two additional programs over the next two years. One program aims to identify novel Aramchol-based drug combinations to overcome resistance to standard-of-care oncological treatments for patients with advanced colorectal and hepatic cancers. Another program aims to unravel new mechanisms of action that will allow the development of a novel Aramchol-based drug combination targeting cardiac fibrosis, or scarring of the heart, which occurs in many cardiovascular diseases that can lead to heart dysfunction and failure. The Company plans on releasing new data from in-vitro and ex-vivo studies in these programs during the fourth quarter of 2024.
Recent scientific publications reveal that:
SCD1 inhibition emerges as a novel therapeutic strategy for clinically important cardiometabolic diseases which affect more than 60 million people in the United States alone.
The combination of SCD1 inhibitor with standard-of-care oncology agents has the potential of the prevention of drug resistance thus ameliorating the prognosis of patients with hepatoma (hepatocellular carcinoma, HCC), colorectal cancer and glioma (GBM).
The newly discovered link between lipid metabolism and synucleinopathies (Parkinson disease and some forms of dementia) provides validation of SCD inhibition as a neuroprotective treatment.
Allen Baharaff, President and CEO of Galmed Pharmaceuticals commented: “The conditions Galmed plans to focus upon in the coming years are major public health problems impacting millions of people worldwide and posing huge financial burden on health providers. SCD1 is a key enzyme that critically regulates many physiological processes, thereby promoting the progression of cardiovascular, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. We are leveraging on two decades of development of the most clinically advanced SCD1 inhibitor (Aramchol) to date as we broaden our drug development activities. Recent scientific breakthroughs identifying the role of SCD1 as a “master-switch” in lipid metabolism together with our recent infusion of cash, encourage us to expand from liver diseases to major cardiometabolic and cancer indications in dire need of new therapies. In this research, Galmed is collaborating with both leading academia and industry, employing cutting-edge drug development methodologies like AI data mining and proprietary “organ-on-a-chip” systems to accelerate our development processes.”