Idogen has initiated a collaboration with Richard Williams’ research group at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at the University of Oxford.

Using a research model of rheumatoid arthritis, the collaboration will investigate the treatment effect of follow-up molecules to Zebularine, which Idogen identified and filed for patent protection for this Spring.

The company announced in April 2016 that four new substances which increase the expression of IDO1 had been identified, but with somewhat different mechanisms of action than Zebularine. Idogen is now initiating a collaboration with Richard Williams’ research group at the University of Oxford to investigate the effect of these new substances in a rheumatoid arthritis model. Richard Williams, who is a member of Idogen’s scientific advisory board, conducts prominent basic research related to the enzyme IDO1 and rheumatoid arthritis.

The Kennedy Institute is world famous in rheumatoid arthritic research and results from it have led to one of the main pharmaceutical treatments for rheumatoid arthritis. Richard Williams has previously carried out a successful study which showed prolonged effect of Zebularine-treatment in a preclinical model of rheumatoid arthritis. Idogen’s researchers have previously shown that Zebularine increases the expression of IDO1 in the human cell line THP-1. The enzyme IDO1 is of central importance for the dendritic cells’ ability to create immune tolerance, that is to get the immune system to tolerate a specific antigen and thus consider it as endogenous