A potential new drug for targeting aging continues to get good results in clinical tests. The drug candidate BGE-175 (asapiprant) is a molecule that BioAge has in-licensed from Shionogi, a Japanese pharmaceutical company. I spoke with Kristen Fortney at the presentation at the Loyal dog aging company in the Fall of 2021. Her hope is to get the drug to market in the next few years. The drug was initially in development in Japan for treatment of Asthma and has already gone through phase 2 clinical trials successfully, though was not that effective for Asthma, as I understand it.
BioAge Labs presented new data in Nature this week demonstrating how its drug candidate BGE-175 (asapiprant) is uniquely poised to tackle age-related immune system decline that leads to disease progression. As the COVID-19 pandemic evolved to include multiple variants of concern, researchers at BioAge Labs sought to find a way to counter the immune system weakening seen in older patient populations as a way to prevent morbidity and mortality.
BGE-175 is currently being evaluated in Phase II trials to assess efficacy, safety and tolerability for patients over the age of 50 who are hospitalized with COVID-19.
The potential of BGE-175 extends far beyond COVID-19. Fortney proposes BGE-175 as a potential prophylactic candidate for pandemic preparedness, saying, “Imagine if everyone over the age of 50 had the immune system of a 20-year-old. That would have been a very different pandemic.”
To date, BioAge has raised $127M from Andreessen Horowitz, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, and others. BioAge currently has three clinical-stage programs in its growing portfolio.