Sun Pharma's diabetes NCE show promise; to go into phase 1 trials in Q3

Sun Pharma's new molecule for diabetes treatment is likely to get into phase 1 clinical trials in the third quarter of this fiscal after it showed promise in animal trials, the company said on Wednesday.

The stock prices, however, dropped by 3.3 per cent on the BSE at the end of day's trade.

The new chemical entity (NCE) named GL0034 is a long acting molecule used to treat patients with type 2 diabetes. These are called long acting GLP -1R agonists.

Dilip Shanghvi, Managing Director, Sun Pharma said, “We are excited by the robust pre-clinical data for GL0034 and believe that it has significant potential. We look forward to validating this data in human clinical trials.” Sun Pharma is planning to initiate Phase-1 clinical trials for GL0034 by Q3FY21.

The pre-clinical data for GL0034 was recently presented at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Virtual 80th Scientific Sessions. GL0034 has been developed internally by Sun Pharma’s High Impact Innovations – Sustainable Health Solutions (HISHS) Discovery Team.

In the animal trials, the performance of the NCE was assessed in mice. The NCE demonstrated outcomes of various diabetes parameters like glucose reduction, decrease in HbA1c (an important market for clinical efficacy), augmented insulin secretion, lowering of glucagon level and a marked and meaningful reduction in triglyceride levels, the company claimed.

Yet another important feature in diabetes treatment is weight management. GL0034 induced a larger body weight reduction.