St. Michael’s Hospital Joins the Phase II Trial of LSALT Peptide Targeting Cardiac Surgery Associated-Acute Kidney Injury

TORONTO, April 16, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Arch Biopartners Inc., (“Arch” or the “Company”) (TSX Venture: ARCH and OTCQB: ACHFF), announced today that a research team from St. Michael’s Hospital, a site of Unity Health Toronto, has joined the Phase II trial for LSALT peptide targeting the prevention and treatment of cardiac surgery-associated acute kidney injury (CS-AKI). LSALT peptide is the Company’s lead drug candidate for preventing and treating inflammation injury in the kidneys, lungs and liver.

“Our research team is excited to be participating in this trial. Organ injury and repair is a Unity Health Toronto Research Pillar, and we are committed to investigating key mechanisms underlying tissue injury and healing, and to developing therapies to reduce injury and enhance regeneration,” said Dr. David Mazer, translational researcher, anesthesiologist, and intensivist at St. Michael’s Hospital.

The St. Michael’s Hospital clinical team is awaiting ethics approval prior to beginning enrolment in the trial.

The addition of St. Michael’s as the third Canadian clinical site increases the number of trial sites to nine, with six hospitals in Turkey currently recruiting patients.

The CS-AKI Phase II trial is an international multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of LSALT peptide. The recruitment target for the trial is 240 patients. The primary objective of the trial is to evaluate the percentage of subjects with AKI within seven days following on-pump (heart-lung machine) cardiac surgery, defined by the KDIGO (Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes) criteria.

Details of the Phase II trial, entitled “Phase 2 Global, Multicenter, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study of LSALT peptide for the Prevention or Attenuation of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) in Patients Undergoing On-Pump Cardiac Surgery” can be viewed at clinicaltrials.gov.

Cardiac Surgery-Associated Acute Kidney Injury (CS-AKI) and LSALT peptide

CS-AKI is often caused by ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) that reduces blood flow (ischemia) and thus oxygen in the kidney, causing kidney cell damage. Once blood flow is restored to normal (reperfusion), inflammation is triggered and injury to kidney cells is exacerbated. In the worst cases of AKI, kidneys fail, leading to kidney dialysis or kidney transplant. There is no therapeutic treatment available in the market today that prevents acute kidney injury of the type commonly experienced by on-pump cardiac surgery patients.