Arrowhead Announces Dosing of First Patient with Anti-Obesity Treatment Adipotide® in a Phase 1 Clinical Trial

Arrowhead Research Corporation

, a targeted therapeutics company, today announced that the first patient has been dosed in a Phase 1 clinical trial with Adipotide®, a new class of treatment for obesity. Adipotide, formerly known as Prohibitin-TP01, is a synthetic peptide that targets a protein on the surface of blood vessels supporting white adipose tissue (fat), disrupting the blood supply to fat cells and causing them to be reabsorbed and metabolized. Treatment has led to substantial weight loss, decreased food intake, and rapid metabolic changes with implications for Type II diabetes in multiple experimental animal models. The Phase 1 trial is designed to evaluate a single 28 day cycle of Adipotide in patients with castrate-resistant prostate cancer and no standard treatment options. The study is intended to identify a maximum tolerated dose, assess pharmacokinetics, measure the change in weight, and monitor disease progression, in addition to other secondary outcome measures. Fat tissue is known to produce substances that can promote prostate cancer growth. Investigators at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, who are conducting and bearing the costs of the clinical trial, also seek to learn if decreasing white fat, the type of fat associated with obesity, can slow the growth of prostate cancer.