Shareholder Letter Reports Pipeline Advances and Milestones
Released
Released
Announcement PDF
Alterity Therapeutics Issues Shareholder Letter Highlighting Pipeline Advances
and Key Upcoming Milestones
– Preliminary Data from ATH434-202 Study Expected in 1H 2024 –
– ATH434-201 Study to Complete in November 2024 –
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA AND SAN FRANCISCO, USA – 22 January 2024: Alterity Therapeutics
(ASX: ATH, NASDAQ: ATHE) (“Alterity” or “the Company”), a biotechnology company dedicated
to developing disease modifying treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, today issued a
letter to shareholders.
Dear Shareholders:
As we begin a new year, I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your support of Alterity,
reflect on our accomplishments in 2023, and layout our key milestones for 2024. We remain
steadfastly committed to developing new treatments for individuals living with
neurodegenerative diseases.
2023 was a critical year for us and I am pleased to report that we hit all of our intended
milestones.
We have an extremely robust program evaluating neurodegenerative diseases with a current
focus on Multiple System Atrophy, or MSA, a disease related to Parkinson’s. As a reminder, MSA
is a rare and aggressive Parkinsonian disorder that rapidly progresses and causes profound
disability. Although similar to Parkinson’s disease, affected individuals cannot adequately
maintain their blood pressure or control bowel and bladder function – areas that drastically
impair quality of life. The pathological hallmark of MSA is accumulation of the protein alphasynuclein and neuron loss in multiple brain regions within the central nervous system. While
some of the symptoms of MSA can be treated with available medications, currently there are no
drugs that can slow disease progression and there is no cure.
We are looking to change the paradigm of treating MSA with our lead clinical development
candidate ATH434, an orally administered agent discovered in house to target
neurodegeneration. ATH434 acts by redistributing excess iron in the brain, reducing the protein
α-synuclein, and rescuing neuronal function. Based on accumulated pre-clinical data and an
understanding of how MSA develops and progresses, we believe ATH434 has excellent potential
to treat MSA as well as Parkinson’s disease. Importantly, ATH434 has been granted Orphan Drug
Designation (ODD) for the treatment of MSA by the U.S. FDA and the European Commission. ODD
comes with many benefits including 7-10 years of market exclusivity, tax credits and fee
reductions, as well as protocol assistance from each agency.
Our primary Phase 2 clinical trial is a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study
(ATH434-201) evaluating ATH434 in individuals with early-stage MSA. I am very proud of our 201
study team for fulfilling our goals in 2023 by opening numerous clinical trial sites around the
world and completing enrollment of all study participants in November 2023. The ATH434-201
study is treating these participants for 12 months and, therefore, the study will complete in
November 2024. Once this portion of the trial is completed, we will then analyze the data and
report topline results in January 2025.
In addition, during 2023 we also initiated a second, Phase 2 clinical trial (ATH434-202) in
individuals with more advanced MSA than in the 201 trial. A key aim of the 202 study is to assess
the efficacy of ATH434 on objective biomarkers that measure target engagement and are
relevant to the underlying pathology of MSA. While the 202 trial is also treating participants for
12-months, it has an open label design that will allow us to perform interim analyses of biomarker
data while the study is ongoing, giving us a potential early indication of efficacy. We expect to
report preliminary six-month data from the initial patients enrolled in the ATH434-202 trial in
the first half of this year.
Our bioMUSE Natural History study also continues to generate invaluable data related to the
understanding of MSA and its early presentation. The insights gained from this study enabled
us to refine the design of our ongoing Phase 2 studies, optimizing patient selection and analysis
of key endpoints. Along with our academic partners at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in
the U.S., we have delivered several data presentations at important neurology conferences
during 2023. Important elements of the data included an enhanced understanding of MSA, new
methods to diagnose and potentially treat the disease, and potential novel biomarkers for
evaluating disease modifying treatments such as ATH434. We expect to report additional data
from bioMUSE this year as well.
In December 2023, we presented promising new data on the effect of ATH434 in a Parkinson’s
disease primate model. Personally, I am very excited about these findings because we have
shown for the first time that ATH434 can reduce Parkinson’s symptoms in a higher order animal
– the monkey. Importantly, the improvements in motor skills and general functioning that
parallel human parkinsonism were associated with reductions in iron in affected brain regions,
validating the approach we are using in our ongoing clinical trials.
As I have laid out above, 2024 will be a pivotal year for us. The primate data in Parkinson’s
disease has improved our ability to predict clinical outcomes and increases our overall confidence
level in our ongoing Phase 2 clinical trials in MSA. We are currently running two trials allowing us
to study MSA populations of differing severity. Our ATH434-201 clinical trial will complete in
November with topline data reported shortly thereafter. We will also be able to report
preliminary data from our ATH434-202 trial in the first half of this year. And, we expect to make
additional progress with bioMUSE and the advancement of ATH434 in Parkinson’s disease.
Thank you for your continued interest and support and we look forward to keeping you updated
on our progress.
David Stamler, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Alterity
About Alterity Therapeutics Limited
Alterity Therapeutics is a clinical stage biotechnology company dedicated to creating an alternate
future for people living with neurodegenerative diseases. The Company’s lead asset, ATH434, has
the potential to treat various Parkinsonian disorders and is currently being evaluated in two
Phase 2 clinical trials in Multiple System Atrophy. Alterity also has a broad drug discovery
platform generating patentable chemical compounds to treat the underlying pathology of
neurological diseases. The Company is based in Melbourne, Australia, and San Francisco,
California, USA. For further information please visit the Company’s web site at
www.alteritytherapeutics.com.
Authorisation & Additional information
This announcement was authorized by David Stamler, CEO of Alterity Therapeutics Limited.
Investor and Media Contacts:
Australia
Hannah Howlett
we-aualteritytherapeutics@we-worldwide.com
+61 450 648 064
U.S.
Remy Bernarda
remy.bernarda@iradvisory.com
+1 (415) 203-6386
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of section 27A of
the Securities Act of 1933 and section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The Company
has tried to identify such forward-looking statements by use of such words as "expects,"
"intends," "hopes," "anticipates," "believes," "could," "may," "evidences" and "estimates," and
other similar expressions, but these words are not the exclusive means of identifying such
statements.
Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by
such forward-looking statements are described in the sections titled “Risk Factors” in the
Company’s filings with the SEC, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F as well as
reports on Form 6-K, including, but not limited to the following: statements relating to the
Company's drug development program, including, but not limited to the initiation, progress and
outcomes of clinical trials of the Company's drug development program, including, but not
limited to, ATH434, and any other statements that are not historical facts. Such statements
involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, those risks and uncertainties
relating to the difficulties or delays in financing, development, testing, regulatory approval,
production and marketing of the Company’s drug components, including, but not limited to,
ATH434, the ability of the Company to procure additional future sources of financing,
unexpected adverse side effects or inadequate therapeutic efficacy of the Company's drug
compounds, including, but not limited to, ATH434, that could slow or prevent products coming
to market, the uncertainty of obtaining patent protection for the Company's intellectual
property or trade secrets, the uncertainty of successfully enforcing the Company’s patent rights
and the uncertainty of the Company freedom to operate.
Any forward-looking statement made by us in this press release is based only on information
currently available to us and speaks only as of the date on which it is made. We undertake no
obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may
be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or
otherwise.
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