Mast Therapeutics to develop vepoloxamer to treat chronic heart failure

Based in the recently reported nonclinical results, the company intends to start dosing in a Phase II trial of vepoloxamer in patients with chronic heart failure in the third quarter of 2015.

Mast Therapeutics chief executive officer Brian Culley said: "While we are still in the planning process, we expect the Phase II study will be a randomized, double-blind, two-arm, placebo-controlled study of the safety and efficacy of a single administration of vepoloxamer in patients with chronic heart failure, including its effect on markers of cardiac injury (troponin) and wall stress (NT-proBNP), as well as clinical outcomes.

"We anticipate that the study will be conducted on an outpatient basis and enroll approximately 150 patients at sites in and outside of the US.

"Of note, we recently filed new patent applications claiming the use of vepoloxamer in this and other clinical settings of heart failure and will continue to identify ways to create additional value and protect the sizeable market opportunity of our vepoloxamer pipeline."

Recently, the company reported results from two randomized, placebo-controlled nonclinical trials of vepoloxamer in a model of chronic, stable heart failure produced by intracoronary microembolizations.

The company said that vepoloxamer is the non-proprietary (generic) name for purified poloxamer 188.