Regado Biosciences Awarded Three Grants from the Federal Government to Advance Research of Lead Programs

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Nov. 3, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Regado Biosciences, Inc., a private biopharmaceutical company leading the development of antithrombotic aptamers with matched active control agents, announced today that it has received funding from the United States government under the Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project (QTDP) grants program to advance the development of the company's three programs, REG1, REG2 and REG3.  The total grant amount allocated to Regado was more than $733,000.  

The QTDP program is part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law in March 2010.  It states that qualified discovery projects must involve scientific activities that are designed to treat areas of unmet medical need.  The QTDP grant program provides support for innovative projects that are determined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to have reasonable potential to result in a new therapy to treat chronic and acute diseases, reduce health care costs or represent a significant advance in U.S. competitiveness in the fields of life, biological and medical sciences.  

"We are extremely pleased that our focus and efforts towards developing a new and innovative therapeutic technology of proprietary controllable aptamer drug systems has been recognized favorably by the federal government," said David J. Mazzo, PhD, President and CEO of Regado.  "We will use these funds to advance our company's extensive pipeline for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases."

ABOUT REGADO BIOSCIENCES

Regado Biosciences, Inc. is a private biopharmaceutical company pioneering a new therapeutic technology with the creation and development of proprietary controllable aptamer drug systems.  Each system comprises a nuclease-stabilized RNA aptamer, the therapeutic effect of which can be reversed partially or completely in real time by its specific and complementary oligonucleotide active control agent. This technology is being applied to injectable antithrombotics (including anticoagulants and antiplatelet agents) in the acute and sub-acute care cardiovascular setting, a multi-billion dollar world-wide market in need of drugs with improved safety profiles and a greater degree of therapeutic control.  The products in Regado's pipeline are designed to act as optimized antithrombotics, uniquely concomitantly minimizing the risk of ischemia and bleeding, and, by allowing patient specific tuning of the desired therapeutic effect, providing a safe and unique approach to personalized medicine.

ABOUT REG1, REG2 and REG3  

Regado's lead program, the anticoagulant system REG1, consists of two parenteral agents both administered by IV bolus, the first being a potent highly selective Factor IXa inhibitor (pegnivacogin, a.k.a. RB006) and the second being its complementary active control agent (anivamersen, a.k.a. RB007).  Anivamersen can be used to selectively completely or partially reverse the anticoagulant effect of pegnivacogin.  REG1, presently in a phase 2b clinical trial (the RADAR trial), is intended for application in arterial thrombosis applications, initially in Acute Coronary Syndrome patients intended for Percutaneous Coronary Intervention.  A clinical program in Open Heart Surgery [including coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and valve repair/replacement] is also under development.  REG2, Regado's second product candidate, consists of a subcutaneously administered depot formulation of pegnivacogin paired with the IV bolus formulation of anivamersen.  REG2 recently completed single escalating dose phase 1 clinical testing (the first successful subcutaneous application of an aptamer in humans) and is planned to be studied in a multiple escalating dose clinical trial in 2011.  It is intended for use in venous thrombosis indications such as venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis in patients undergoing abdominal surgery.  REG3, Regado's third program, consists of a specific GPVI inhibitor and its active control agent (RB571 and RB515, respectively).  REG3 is planned to enter phase 1 human clinical testing in 2011 and will be indicated for antiplatelet therapy.  Information pertaining to Regado's clinical programs may be obtained at www.clinicaltrials.gov.

ABOUT APTAMERS

Pegnivacogin is a member of a class of compounds called aptamers.  Aptamers are single stranded oligonucleotides that adopt a specific conformation enabling direct, specific inhibition of the targeted protein.  A key unique feature of aptamers derives from the fact that they are formed from nucleic acids.  As such, their pharmacologic activity can be controlled by a matched, complementary oligonucleotide active control agent (the Watson-Crick base pair complement of a fraction of the agent to be controlled), which can bind to the aptamer, removing it from its target and reversing its biologic effects.  Anivamersen is the active control agent of pegnivacogin.  

More information can be found at www.regadobio.com.

SOURCE Regado Biosciences, Inc.