Anida Pharma is utilizing the potential of resolution biology to develop novel treatment paradigms to prevent and restore

neuro-sensory dysfunction.

 

WHO WE ARE

Anida is a preclinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leveraging the knowledge around the body’s own homeostatic and protective mechanisms to develop targeted therapeutics in the fields of vision, hearing and cognition. The combination of the unique discoveries in Dr. Charles Serhan’s Laboratory at Harvard Medical School with our team’s extensive drug development experience has enabled us to develop a pipeline of treatments that targets sensory organ dysfunction and with an initial focus on high unmet medical needs in pediatric patients:

Retinopathy of Prematurity;

Drug-induced hearing loss in cancer chemotherapy treated children;

Brain injury in the newborn;

and with the potential to serve broader adult and pediatric indication areas

 

OUR SCIENCE

The immune system is critical for an organism’s integrity and survival. However, an excessive immune response is associated with tissue death and dysfunctional repair, and may lead to chronic organ failure or even become deleterious. To prevent permanent loss of function the body has adopted highly specific counter-mechanisms, which if activated may offer unique therapeutic advantages. Anida’s drug in development, AP-001, is an endogenous lipid-derived agonistic small molecule from the DHA metabolome. AP-001 acts on several pathways to ensure system integrity (see figure). By independently regulating inflammation, cell death and tissue repair AP-001 addresses the need to control for the redundancy of pathological mechanisms associated with acute events. These may be an infection, trauma, or aberrant tissue response due to changed physiological conditions, and are further exemplified by Anida’s targeted treatment indications. AP-001 is in the scientific literature referred to as neuroprotectin D1 (NPD1) or protectin D1 (PD1).

 

OUR INDICATIONS

Retinopathy of Prematurity

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Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is the leading cause of preventable childhood blindness. With the improved survival of early born babies in both high- and low-income countries ROP has become a global health issue. With 1 million infants

at risk every year, 200,000 develop any form of ROP with 60,000 going on to severe vision threatening ROP and a high risk of becoming blind. The cause of ROP is abnormal blood vessel development (pathological neovascularization) in the retina of the prematurely born infant. AP-001 in relevant models is shown to

prevent such neovascularization, and,  importantly, to stimulate normal blood vessel outgrowth. The data support the development of AP-001 as an eye drop

for safe and convenient use from birth through to full term age to prevent severe ROP in high risk infants. There is

currently no approved drug treatment to prevent the development of ROP.

Chemotherapy-induced hearing loss

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Treatment of childhood cancer is highly successful with cure rates above 80%,

but for many survivors come at a price of life-long ailments due to the side-effects

of chemotherapy. The most devastating is permanent hearing loss with its impact on learning and social skills; up to 50% of children with even minimal hearing loss
may not pass 9th grade. Platinum-based drugs are extremely toxic to the inner ear but preferred in most treatment combi-nations of childhood solid tumors. Up to 70% of children treated with cisplatin 

experience permanent hearing loss and

for at least half of them the loss is severe, poorly compensated for by hearing aids. AP-001, as intended prophylactic treat-ment, is experimentally shown to protect from cisplatin-induced hearing loss. AP-001 will be delivered locally to the ear to not compete with the cancer therapy and can become the first such approved treatment.

Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) and neonatal stroke

Four to five children of every thousand born alive will suffer lack of brain oxygenation, develop brain ventricular hemorrhage or stroke in the perinatal situation. Survivors will grow up with permanent handicaps, which may be severe, including cerebral palsy, cognitive
impairment, and chronic epilepsy, and for many individuals with a life- long depen-dency to function in society. In models of neonatal brain ischemia and stroke, as

well as adult stroke, AP-001 treatment reduced loss of brain tissue and improved post-stroke function, with treatment beginning after the insult. AP-001 was further shown to be neuroprotective, to promote neurogenesis and to prevent epileptogenesis. Current treatment of babies at risk following an ischemic event is limited to cooling but is insufficient, and no drug treatment exists to further reduce brain damage. For babies suffering a stroke or ventricular bleeding no

treatment is available.

Sensory Organ Exploratory Indications

With our commitment to addressing needs for the treatment and prevention of sensory organ dysfunction Anida is also using its
platform and knowledge base to explore a wider range of indications including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), other retinal
disorders, as well as adult and noise-induced sensorineural hearing loss, and certain neurodegenerative conditions.

 

PIPELINE

Anida is working to address a range of potentially debilitating outcomes in infants and children due to premature birth, a complicated birth or complications due to life-saving cancer chemotherapy. 

The further development of our programs will also benefit large adult patient populations.

 

ABOUT US

MANAGEMENT

Per Gjorstrup, MD PhD

Co-founder Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals.
Senior management positions: Micromet,
Biogen, Pharmacia (Pfizer), Astra

President and Chief Executive Officer

Thomas P. Sakmar, MD

Richard M. and Isabel P. Furlaud
Professor, and Senior Physician,
Rockefeller University, New York

Research

John C. Kapeghian, PhD 

President Preclinical Safety Associates;
Senior positions with Ciba-Geigy, Charles
River Labs and their Navigator Group

Preclinical development and toxicology

Raymond E. Dagger, PhD

President, Stonehedge Pharmaceutical
Consulting; Senior positions PPD, Sequoia
Pharmaceuticals, Eisai Research Institute

Chemistry and formulation

Ulrich Granzer, PhD

Founder Granzer Regulatory Consulting;
Senior regulatory management positions
at Knoll, Bayer, Glaxo-Wellcome

Regulatory affairs

Issi Rozen, MBA

Chief Business Officer, Broad Institute;
Senior management positions at Resolvyx
Pharmaceuticals, EMD Serono

Business Development

SCIENTIFIC AND CLINICAL ADVISOR AND COLLABORATORS

Charles N. Serhan, PhD, DSc

Chair Anida Scientific Advisory Board

Director, Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
The Simon Gelman Professor of Anaesthesia, Harvard Medical School

Donna M. Ferriero, MD MS

Departments of Pediatrics and Neurology
UCSF Weill Institute for Neuroscience

Distinguished Professor

John A. Germiller, MD PhD

Director, Clinical Research, Pediatric
Otorhinolaryngology, The Children’s Hospital
Of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine

Assoc. Prof. Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology

Henrik Hagberg, MD PhD

Centre for Perinatal Medicine and Health
Institute for Clinical Sciences,
Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University

Professor and Physician in Chief

Ann Hellström, MD PhD

Queen Silvia Hospital,

Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University

Professor in Pediatric Ophthalmology

Anne G. M. Schilder, MD

University College London, NIHR Research

Professor and Director evidENT, UCL Ear

Institute

Professor Paediatric Otorhinolaryngology

David K. Wallace, MD MPH

Chair Department of Ophthalmology,

Indiana University School of Medicine

Marilyn K. Glick Professor Ophthalmology

 

CONTACT

Anida Pharma Inc.

155 Brookline Street, Suite 005

Cambridge, MA 02139

Tel: 617 331 5033

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