Chronic inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis are quite common in industrialized countries and are based on genetic components as well as environmental aspects.

Important medical need

Direct and indirect costs of chronic inflammatory skin diseases are high. At the same time, duration of treatment with any individual current therapeutic is limited due to the undesired side effects of standard medication. Thus, there is an obvious medical need for novel, safe and efficacious therapeutic concepts in these areas.

Avontec's solution

Avontec's drug candidate AVT-02 for psoriasis contains a short, double-stranded oligonucleotide “decoy” that effectively inhibits STAT-1, a transcription factor shown to be strongly involved in the

regulation of chronic inflammation. AVT-02 reduced inflammation in several pharmacological animal models and showed an effect on relevant clinical endpoints in a pilot phase 2a study. AVT-02 was proven in that study to be safe and well tolerated. The submission of a multiple dosing phase 2a clinical psoriasis study is in preparation.

AVT-02 product target profile

• Improved safety profile: significantly better than any current topical or combo thereof
• High efficacy: better than high potency steroids and better than steroidcombo