- ATH-063 is a novel, oral, first-in-class, small molecule therapeutic targeting both inflammation and direct mucosal healing in patients with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease -

LOS ANGELES, March 30, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Athos Therapeutics, Inc. ("Athos"), a clinical stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of artificial intelligence-based precision small molecule therapeutics for patients with immune-mediated diseases and cancer, announced today that it has been granted a CTN acknowledgement from the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration and has received Human Research Ethics Committee ("HREC") approval to commence a Phase I clinical trial of ATH-063 in Australia.

HREC approval is confirmation that Athos has successfully completed all pre-clinical, safety and animal model efficacy testing required to commence a Phase I clinical trial in Australia. In addition to the main safety assessment goals of the trial, Athos will also perform multi-omic molecular and genetic analyses to demonstrate additional proof-of-principal of drug activity to guide the design of future studies.

"The TGA's acknowledgement of our application to initiate clinical evaluation of ATH-063 brings us one step closer to introducing a potentially paradigm-shifting treatment for people living with Inflammatory Bowel Disease," said Dimitrios Iliopoulos, PhD, MBA, President & CEO, CEO of Athos. "The initiation of the ATH-063 clinical development program after only three and a half years of development marks an important milestone for Athos and is illustrative of our innovative approach to drug discovery and demonstrates the best-in-class capabilities of the Athos team. I am proud of Athos' record of accomplishment for rapid execution in bringing novel precision medicines to patients," added Iliopoulos.

"We are thrilled to obtain clearance to advance ATH-063 into the clinic and are excited about the prospects of what this new class of medicines may mean for patients in need," said Allan Pantuck, MD, MS, FACS, Chairman, Founder & CMO. "This is an important milestone for Athos, representing our first program to receive regulatory clearance to enter the clinic and the first ever clinical trial to evaluate this novel genomic controller. This new class of therapeutics leverages our groundbreaking science and has broad potential applicability in many therapeutic areas, including IBD, other autoimmune disorders, and cancer."

About ATH-063

ATH-063 is a first-in-class, oral, small molecule, genomic regulator in development for the treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, other autoimmune diseases and solid cancers. The ATH-063 gene target is a central hub on a gene network that was identified by the Athos computational engine through the integration of molecular and clinical data from Athos' large IBD patient biorepository. ATH-063 acts both by suppressing pro-inflammatory responses and inducing direct mucosal healing through regulation of tight junction proteins. Blood-based proteomic and microbiome biomarker signatures are also being developed by Athos to correlate with ATH-063 effectiveness.

About Athos Therapeutics

The Mission of Athos Therapeutics is to develop first-in-class medications that will significantly impact the lives of patients with autoimmune disorders, chronic inflammatory diseases, and cancer. The Athos drug development platform begins with the interrogation of high-quality patient samples and data sourced from premier global hospital systems. Athos identifies novel drug targets (hubs) by integrating clinical and molecular datasets into the biological network of a disease (the disease interactome) and matches them to its small molecule computational chemistry platform. At Athos, we aim to disentangle the complexity of autoimmune and cancer biology by evaluating disease heterogeneity at the molecular level and develop precision-medicine therapeutics by implementing a systems biology approach and stratifying patients into specific molecular subtypes. Our analytical platform includes the Athos data lake, singular well-established omics workflows, and an integrative deep machine learning engine. The co-founders of Athos include one of the founders of Kite Pharma (acquired for $12B), the medicinal chemist behind two multi-billion-dollar FDA-approved drugs (Xtandi & Erleada), and the discoverer of the miR-124 drug target, currently in a Phase III IBD trial. Along with ATH-63, the Company's lead drug compound for Inflammatory Bowel Disease, the Athos pipeline includes small molecule approaches for various autoimmune disease and cancer. 

Additional information about Athos Therapeutics can be found at https://athostx.com/