Inhibikase Therapeutics, Inc.

IKT Therapeutics is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company focused on developing treatments for cardiopulmonary diseases, specifically Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH). The company's lead product candidate is IKT-001, a prodrug of imatinib mesylate, for PAH, which is an orphan indication. Imatinib, first approved in the United States in 2001 for various cancers and blood disorders, has a well-characterized safety profile from over 20 years of clinical use, with its first reported use in PAH in 2005. PAH is a progressive, life-threatening disease affecting approximately 50,000 Americans, characterized by pulmonary vascular remodeling and elevated pulmonary vascular resistance. IKT Therapeutics has completed a non-human primate safety study and a bioequivalence clinical study in healthy volunteers to determine equivalent doses of IKT-001 to imatinib. The company has initiated its Phase 3 clinical study, IMPROVE-PAH, by activating a small number of sites and commencing patient pre-screening activities. IKT-001 was developed to improve upon drugs that inhibit Abelson Tyrosine Kinase and type III receptor tyrosine kinases. This novel oral prodrug of imatinib was designed to reduce gastrointestinal side effects commonly seen with imatinib. In direct in vitro comparisons, IKT-001 shows significantly less inhibitory activity at target tyrosine kinases, including c-Kit, which is implicated in imatinib's gastrointestinal side effects.