uniQure Announces Dosing of First Patient in GenTLE Phase I/IIa Clinical Trial of
AMT-260 for the Treatment of Refractory Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
Lexington, MA and Amsterdam, the Netherlands, November 21, 2024 — uniQure N.V. (NASDAQ: QURE), a leading gene therapy company advancing transformative therapies for patients with severe medical needs, today announced that the first patient has been dosed in the GenTLE Phase I/IIa clinical trial of AMT-260 for the treatment of refractory mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE).
“The dosing of the first patient in our Phase I/II trial in temporal lobe epilepsy represents an important milestone for uniQure and our third clinical trial initiation over the past six months,” stated Walid Abi-Saab, M.D., chief medical officer of uniQure. “Nearly one-third of people experiencing focal onset seizures do not respond to currently available treatments and are left with limited therapeutic options. Our investigational agent, AMT-260, which is a one-time administration, has the potential to be a transformative treatment option for these patients. We continue to actively screen patients for the trial and look forward to providing program updates in the new year.”
AMT-260 consists of an AAV9 vector that locally delivers two engineered miRNAs designed to reduce the expression of GluK2 protein subunits, a subtype of glutamate receptor that is believed to be aberrantly expressed in the hippocampus of patients with refractory MTLE and believed to trigger their seizure activity. In preclinical animal studies, AMT-260 reduced the number of seizures per day in a dose-dependent manner. AMT-260 also reduced the expression of GluK2 mRNA and protein in the hippocampus of epileptic mice and from resected hippocampal slices from patients with refractory MTLE.
GenTLE is a Phase I/IIa multi-center, open-label trial being conducted in the U.S. to evaluate the safety, tolerability and exploratory signs of efficacy of two doses of AMT-260 in individuals with refractory MTLE. The study comprises two dose cohorts of six patients each. The study is actively recruiting though 10 sites with an additional two sites expected to be activated by the end of 2024. Additional details are available on www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT06063850).
About Refractory Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
Temporal lobe epilepsy is a chronic neurologic disorder and is the most common form of focal epilepsy with more than 600,000 individuals suffering from the disorder in the United States. Approximately 80% of all temporal lobe epilepsy cases are mesial, which involves the medial (or internal) structures of the brain. The majority of MTLE cases are refractory to anti-seizure medications, which severely limits treatment options.
About uniQure
uniQure’s mission is to reimagine the future of medicine by delivering innovative cures that transform lives. The recent approvals of our gene therapy for hemophilia B – a historic achievement based on more than a decade of research and clinical development – represent a major milestone in the field of genomic medicine and ushers in a new treatment approach for patients living with hemophilia. We are now leveraging our modular and validated technology and manufacturing platform to advance a pipeline of proprietary gene therapies for the treatment of patients with Huntington's disease, refractory mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Fabry disease, and other severe diseases. www.uniQure.com