Thymosin beta 4 is essential to healthy heart development, embryonic survival: Research

RegeneRx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE Amex:RGN) ("the Company" or "RegeneRx") today announced that a research team from the Molecular Medicine Unit at UCL-Institute of Child Health in London reported preclinical findings that Thymosin beta 4 (Tβ4), is essential to healthy heart development and embryonic survival.

“We believe this research further supports development of RGN-352, an injectable formulation of Tβ4, in acute myocardial infarction”

The research was conducted by Drs. Nicola Smart, Karina Dubé and Paul Riley, and was published online in Nature Communications; 2010 Jul 27; DIO 10.1038/ncomms1041. The research was performed under a Material Transfer Agreement between RegeneRx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. and the UCL-Institute.

In the study, mice embryos were genetically modified not to produce Hand1, a key transcription factor that plays a fundamental role in the normal development of the heart and in congenital heart disease. Without Hand1, Tβ4 is down-regulated, hearts are malformed and the embryos do not survive. In this study, injection of synthetic Tβ4 into pregnant female mice lacking Hand1 resulted in normal development and in the survival of the early embryos. This paper provides the first direct evidence that Tβ4 plays a critical role in early embryonic vessel development and identifies a novel Hand-1-Tβ4 pathway.

"These findings are important in that they establish the molecular mechanism by which Tβ4 stimulates vascular growth of the embryo and opens up the possibility of utilizing Tβ4 to potentially correct serious heart defects in utero," stated Allan Goldstein, Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Founder and Chief Scientific Advisor of RegeneRx.

"We believe this research further supports development of RGN-352, an injectable formulation of Tβ4, in acute myocardial infarction," said J.J. Finkelstein, Chief Executive Officer of RegeneRx. "We plan to begin a Phase 2 study in AMI later this year."

SOURCE RegeneRx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.