Histogen publishes preclinical emricasan study data

Histogen announced the online publication of an abstract describing a preclinical study showing that emricasan has therapeutic effect against bacterial skin infections. In the study, the role of the irreversible pan-caspase inhibitor emricasan alone and in combination with a standard-of-care antibiotic, doxycycline, was examined as potential host-directed immunotherapy against bacterial infections in vivo. Mice in four groups; placebo, placebo plus doxycycline, emricasan plus doxycycline, and emricasan alone were treated orally twice daily for seven days after intradermal injection of the established CA-MRSA strain USA300 LAC: lux of Staphylococcus aureus in mice. The results of the study show that: emricasan alone reduced both lesion size and bacterial burden versus placebo; emricasan alone showed efficacy superior to doxycycline alone in lesion size (p=0.02); and emricasan alone and emricasan plus doxycycline showed comparable efficacy versus placebo in both lesion size and bacterial burden.