Capricor Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CAPR), a biotechnology company developing transformative cell and exosome-based therapeutics for the treatment of rare diseases, today announced the completion of the submission of its Biologics License Application (BLA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking full approval for deramiocel, an investigational cell therapy, to treat patients diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) cardiomyopathy.
“The submission of the BLA marks a pivotal step for Capricor Therapeutics and those impacted by DMD. This BLA is the culmination of a body of work that has been focused on bringing this potentially transformational therapy to those patients in need,” said Linda Marbán, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Capricor. “We believe that the strength of this application is that deramiocel has shown in multiple clinical trials attenuation of the cardiac implications of DMD. We look forward to working with the FDA throughout the review process to support this potential approval.”
The full submission of the rolling BLA was completed as the Company had previously guided in late December 2024 and is supported by Capricor’s existing cardiac data from its Phase 2 HOPE-2 and HOPE-2 Open Label Extension (OLE) trials compared to natural history data from an FDA funded and published dataset on the implications of DMD cardiomyopathy and potential biomarkers of disease progression. Capricor has requested a priority review, which, if granted, would reduce the review timeline from the standard 10-month to a priority 6-month review from the date the submission is accepted by the FDA.
In conjunction with this achievement, Capricor will receive a milestone payment of $10 million from its distribution partner, Nippon Shinyaku Co., Ltd., under the terms of its U.S. Commercialization and Distribution Agreement.
Deramiocel for the treatment of DMD, has received Orphan Drug Designation from the FDA and European Medicines Agency (EMA). The regulatory pathway for deramiocel is supported by RMAT (Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy Designation) in the U.S. and the Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product (ATMP) Designation in the European region. In addition, if Capricor were to receive FDA marketing approval for deramiocel regarding the treatment of DMD, Capricor would be eligible to receive a Priority Review Voucher (PRV) based on its previous receipt of a rare pediatric disease designation.
About Deramiocel
Deramiocel (CAP-1002) consists of allogeneic cardiosphere-derived cells (CDCs), a population of stromal cells that have been shown in preclinical and clinical studies to exert potent immunomodulatory, antifibrotic and regenerative actions in dystrophinopathy and heart failure. CDCs act by secreting extracellular vesicles known as exosomes, which target macrophages and alter their expression profile so that they adopt a healing, rather than a pro-inflammatory, phenotype. CDCs have been the subject of over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications and have been administered to over 200 human subjects across several clinical trials.
About Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a devastating genetic disorder characterized by progressive weakness and chronic inflammation of the skeletal, heart and respiratory muscles with mortality at a median age of approximately 30 years. It is estimated that DMD occurs in approximately one in every 3,500 male births and that the patient population is estimated to be approximately 15,000-20,000 in the United States. DMD pathophysiology is driven by the impaired production of functional dystrophin, which normally functions as a structural protein in muscle. The reduction of functional dystrophin in muscle cells leads to significant cell damage and ultimately causes muscle cell death and fibrotic replacement. In DMD patients, heart muscle cells progressively die and are replaced with scar tissue. This cardiomyopathy eventually leads to heart failure, which is currently the leading cause of death among those with DMD. Treatment options are limited and there is no cure.
