Vicore Pharma Holding, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing medicines targeting the angiotensin II type 2 receptor (AT2R), announces advancing its first new chemical entity from the VP03 program to a first in human phase 1 trial. This molecule is the company's first AT2R agonist to follow C21 in clinical development.

Building on its specific expertise Vicore announces that the first candidate in the VP03 program has completed preclinical development and is ready to enter the clinical development phase. A clinical trial application is planned to be submitted during Q2 2022. The compound C106 shows high selectivity for AT2R and good activity in reducing TGFb in human tissue. Further, four additional AT2R agonistic compounds are expected to finalize preclinical evaluation during 2022.

"Vicore has developed proprietary methods to swiftly advance novel AT2R agonists to the clinic and we expect further compounds with different properties to follow during the coming year" says Johanna Gräns, Head of Preclinical Development at Vicore.

AT2R agonists have shown antifibrotic, repair and regenerative effects in multiple animal models of disease, including lung fibrosis, diabetic kidney disease, heart failure, stroke and cognition. The clinical data with C21 in COVID-19, Raynaud's phenomena in systemic sclerosis and the recent interim data in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis confirm that the AT2R plays an important role in human disease. 

"This is the first step to transform Vicore from a rare lung disease company to a clinical platform company exploring a new class of drugs, the AT2R agonists, for multiple indications" says Carl-Johan Dalsgaard, CEO of Vicore.