WAUKEGAN, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NEOPHARM, Inc. (NASDAQ:NEOL), today announced that it has entered into an exclusive patent license agreement with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the development of CINTREDEKIN BESUDOTOX, or IL13-PE38QQR, for the treatment of Pulmonary Fibrosis and asthma. There are many forms of Pulmonary Fibrosis (PF), one of them, Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) also known as Usual Interstitial Pneumonia (UIP), is a progressive disorder affecting approximately 200,000 Americans and over five million people worldwide. With very few treatments currently available for this disease and no known cure, there exists a significant unmet medical need for new therapy options for these patients. According to the estimates of the National Foundation of Pulmonary Fibrosis, about 40,000 Americans die each year of this deadly disease. Currently, the typical treatment consists of systemic steroids to reduce inflammation and immuno-suppressants to attempt to slow disease progression. The disease progression is characterized as the gradual replacement of healthy lung tissue with substantial scarring. The pre-clinical studies performed at NIH, FDA and at University of Michigan, appear to be promising, including preliminary evidence of the reversal of the disease and its scarring in the animal models of IPF when CINTREDEKIN BESUDOTOX is administered as a nebulized product.
