Tenax Therapeutics, Inc. Announces Transformative Acquisition of PH Precision Med

Tenax Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: TENX), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on identifying, developing, and commercializing products for the critical care market, today announced the acquisition of PH Precision Med (PHPM), a privately-held clinical stage biotech company focused on developing imatinib for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). The FDA has granted Orphan Drug Designation for imatinib for the treatment of PAH, an indication with a high unmet medical need.

The acquisition expands Tenax’s pulmonary hypertension pipeline with the addition of imatinib, a Phase 3 ready candidate. Imatinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) that transformed the treatment of cancer by blocking the underlying pathways resulting in long lasting remissions. Subsequent preclinical and clinical studies in PAH indicate that imatinib may provide antiproliferative and disease-modifying effects in PAH patients through its ability to inhibit several growth factors including platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF). PDGF regulates vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation in PAH and is thought to be associated with the disease progression. Multiple clinical studies of imatinib in PAH patients provide convincing evidence that imatinib can provide impressive improvements in exercise capacity and hemodynamics in patients with advanced PAH. The strong efficacy results from these trials, combined with imatinib’s antiproliferative mechanism action, have raised the possibility that imatinib may work by modifying the underlying PAH disease process. Pursuant to the acquisition, Tenax’s clincial development plan includes advancing a delayed release oral formulation of imatinib, designed to avoid the gastric irritation, into a single pivotal trial pursuant to the 505(b)(2) pathway.

“The acquisition of PHPM immediately expands Tenax’s pipeline to include a second de-risked Phase 3 ready candidate with the potential to be the first disease modifying treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension,” said Anthony DiTonno, Chief Executive Officer of Tenax. “The previous clinical trial designs led to high dropout rates and raised questions related to safety and tolerability, which limited further development of imatinib in PAH. We believe that PHPM’s innovative clinical development plan, which includes a novel formulation that mitigates the side effects without diminishing the bioavailability, has the potential to yield positive clinical outcomes in a single pivotal Phase 3 trial requisite for regulatory approval.”