InnoCore Pharmaceuticals announced that it is part of the OAinject consortium that has been awarded a grant under the Perspectief programme of the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to develop new therapies for the treatment of osteoarthritis.
In the Netherlands, more than 1.5 million people suffer from osteoarthritis (OA) – a rheumatic condition of the joints that causes pain, stiffness, and difficulty in moving. As osteoarthritis is a condition that mainly occurs among older people – an estimated 10% to 15% of all adults aged over 60 have some degree of OA – the number of patients is set to increase due to the ageing of Dutch society. At present, other than palliative management or joint replacement surgery at end stage disease, there is no adequate treatment.
The OAinject programme, led by Prof. dr. Marcel Karperien of the University of Twente, will develop new diagnostic tools to determine which form of arthritis a person has so that individualised treatments can be offered. The researchers will also work on innovative ways of gradually administering drugs locally over a longer period of time via an injectable drug depot in the diseased joint. With this approach, the consortium aims to develop effective pharmacotherapies to treat OA to ensure that patients can retain an active lifestyle that helps to prevent other conditions such as cardiovascular disease and dementia.
Under the OAinject programme, InnoCore will closely collaborate with top scientists of leading Dutch university groups and biotech companies to develop long-acting injectable (LAI) formulations for intra-articular delivery of new biotech-derived therapeutics discovered by OAinject partners. The LAI formulations will be based on InnoCore’s advanced bioresorbable polymeric drug delivery systems, that allow for tightly controlled drug release kinetics and well preserved bioactivity of sensitive therapeutics.