CombinatoRx currently has six candidates in clinical studies and others in the preclinical pipeline for the treatment of immunoinflammatory diseases and other ailments, including four selective steroid amplifiers, CRx-139, CRx-102, CRx-119 and CRx-170, in Phase II. The company's clinical stage synergistic cytokine modulator, CRx-150, combines an antidepressant and a cardiac drug. CombinatoRx also has early stage metabolic candidates.In April, the company announced encouraging results for CRx-170, its oral asthma drug in Phase II trials, which combines budesonide, a steroid, with nortriptyline, which amplifies the steroid's effectiveness at treating lung inflammation, so less can be used, reducing side effects. “We reported spectacular results with CRX-102 [an anti-inflammatory arthritis drug],” said Borisy. However, one anti-inflammatory, CRx-119, did not meet its primary endpoint biomarker for periodontal disease, although the company is still testing it for other disease indications, and CRx-140 for psoriasis was discontinued.According to Borisy's cheery assessments, the company has a 50% rate of success of advancing candidates to Phase II trials, which is above the industry success rate of 20%–30% for Phase II data. “So even if we were only at 25%, we would still be enormously successful because our cost going from the start of a screen to that Phase II data is $10 million or less fully loaded, where the industry average, [according to the Tufts DiMasi Study] without capital weighting adjusting cost and taking the lower number is $150 million,” Borisy elaborated, “I would make the strong form of the claim that some time in the future, whether it is fifty years or a hundred years from now, sooner or later, that most new drugs will in fact be combinations, will be multi-targeted in nature, whether with a single molecule or cocktails of molecules. That is the big picture idea behind CombinatoRx. Our approach of the empirical dumb screening today to find these pairs that no one would have predicted is meant as the first small step.”Curious liquids, indeed.
