OliX Pharmaceuticals Receives HREC Approval to Initiate Phase 1 Clinical Trial of NASH and Obesity Drug

SUWON, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OliX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (KOSDAQ: 226950), a leading developer of RNAi therapeutics, today announced that the Company has received approval from the Alfred Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) to conduct a Phase 1 clinical trial of drug candidate OLX75016 (the candidate of OLX702A) for the treatment of non-alcohol steatohepatitis (NASH).

This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, single and multiple ascending dose study will assess the safety and tolerability of OLX75016 in healthy volunteers.

OliX Pharmaceuticals is developing OLX75016 as a novel therapeutic in treating NASH accompanied by liver fibrosis and managing weight. The Company has secured positive results from a preclinical non-human primates (NHP) study on the efficacy of OLX75016. OLX75016 administered together with a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist (semaglutide) demonstrated additional weight-loss effects, mitigated the weight-rebound effect shown upon termination of semaglutide, lowered total body fat mass, and reduced abdominal girth.

According to the Company, these favorable effects were not mediated by changes in food intake. This suggests that not dietary changes or changes in appetite regulation, but beneficial effects on energy expenditure mediate the weight-loss effects of this combination treatment.

About OliX Pharmaceuticals

OliX Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing therapeutics against a variety of disorders by down-regulating the expression of disease-causing genes based on its own proprietary RNAi technology. The Company’s core RNAi platform, asymmetric siRNA (asiRNA), is a unique gene silencing technology based on RNA interference (RNAi), which is considered the most efficient gene silencing technology. Utilizing this proprietary asiRNA technology, OliX has developed cell penetrating asiRNA (cp-asiRNA), a therapeutic RNAi platform to effectively target diseases including hypertrophic scarring, dry and wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and subretinal fibrosis. OliX has also developed another therapeutic RNAi platform, GalNAc-asiRNA, to target a variety of liver diseases.

Learn more: https://www.olixpharma.com/eng