The story of the scleroderma drug candidate FT011 is one of “tenacity and persistence,” said Darren Kelly, CEO and managing director of Certa Therapeutics, which is developing the drug.
The drug was discovered around 2006 by Kelly’s laboratory at the University of Melbourne and Spencer Williams of the Bio21 Institute.
“It was really [Williams] being the chemist and me being the biologist working together on a problem and developing FT011,” Kelly said.
The drug was the lead asset of a company known as Fibrotech, where Kelly was CEO. Shire acquired the company in 2014. At that time, the drug had finished a Phase 1A study and was in a Phase 1B diabetic nephropathy trial.
In 2019, Takeda completed the acquisition of Shire, shelving several programs.
“We worked with Shire to take back FT011 and all the technology that was around that, and then set up Certa Therapeutics in 2018,” said Kelly
FT011 off…