US-based early-stage drug development company Azome Therapeutics announced on Wednesday that it has entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), part of the US National Institutes of Health.

This agreement covers the investigation of AZM-152, the company's novel inflammasome antagonist, in bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD).

Under the agreement NCATS and Azome Therapeutics will conduct preclinical development studies of AZM-152 to enable the submission of an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for the prevention of BPD in preterm infants.

AZM-152 is a potent and specific antagonist that blocks activation of the inflammatory process that causes BPD. It selectively blocks an essential component of the signalling pathway (the receptor for hyaluronan-mediated motility, or RHAMM) that results in aberrant NLRP3 inflammasome activation. Earlier preclinical studies in BPD have demonstrated that when the product is given as a single dose to neonatal mice exposed to hyperoxia, no inflammatory response is seen and lung alveolarisation is preserved.

Azome Therapeutics' CEO Elliott Gruskin, PhD, said: "It is our hope that this novel, first-in-class therapy will one day help the thousands of families affected by this most common chronic lung disease of childhood, for which there are no current therapeutic options and no effective means of prevention."