Orexo announced the initiation of a Phase 1 trial of its OX640 intranasal dry powder adrenaline, which the company is developing for emergency treatment of anaphylaxis. The OX640-001 study will compare several formulations of OX640 to intramuscular adrenaline in healthy volunteers.
OX640 is based on Orexo’s amorphOX particle engineering technology, which is also the technology behind the company’s OX125 intranasal nalmefene and OX124 intranasal naloxone for the treatment of opioid overdose. According to Orexo, testing has shown that the dry powder adrenaline formulation, which does not include any antioxidants, is significantly more stable than injected adrenaline products such as EpiPen that do include antioxidants.
Orexo President and CEO Nikolaj Sørensen said, “In the development of our rescue medication for overdoses, OX124, the aim was to develop a medicine that is not only faster than the existing alternatives, but also more powerful and with longer duration. Solving this equation led to the development of a novel and unique drug delivery platform, amorphOX, which in exploratory studies has proven to be very scalable as it works with a broad scope of drugs. Our adrenaline project, OX640, is a very promising example capitalizing on this platform and which open new exciting opportunities that go beyond the treatment of mental illness and substance use disorders.”
Senior VP and Head of R&D Robert Rönn commented, “I am very proud that the team at Orexo has, once again, timely allowed us to reach this important milestone. Our nasal adrenaline formulation has the potential to provide allergic patients with a truly improved and differentiated product and we are looking forward to the study results later this year.”
Read the Orexo press release.
