The autoimmune inflammatory disease affects more than 500,000 people in the US alone.
Drug development company Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd. (TASE:CFBI) said today that its CF101 drug for rheumatoid arthritis could also be used to treat Crohn's Disease. The company will present its findings this week at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Boston.
Can-Fite said its laboratory tests revealed that blood and tissue samples taken from patients with Crohn's Disease were found to have high levels of the A3 Adenosine receptor targeted by its CF101 drug. These findings also support the company's previous preclinical models. Can-Fite claims that the presence of the receptor in these samples constitute a firm basis for treating this particular patient group with CF101, which was shown to have bonded specifically with the diseased cells, systematically destroying them without affecting other functioning organs.
Crohn's Disease is an autoimmune inflammatory disease affecting primarily the small intestine. Can-Fite says the disease affects 500,000 people in the US alone, with 20,000 new cases diagnosed every year. The potential market for treatments for this disease is estimated to be worth $5 billion in the US alone.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on November 6, 2007
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