FARA Announces Catabasis Pharmaceuticals as the Recipient of the Kyle Bryant Translational Research Award to Evaluate CAT-4001 as a Potential Therapy for Friedreich’s Ataxia

DOWNINGTOWN, Pa. & CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE), January 19, 2016
The two year award will be for the Evaluation of CAT-4001 in Frataxin-deficient mouse models and dorsal root ganglia neurons to enable its therapeutic development for Friedreich's ataxia. This work will be led by Dr. Andrew Nichols at Catabasis along with collaborators Dr. Mark Payne at Indiana University and Dr. Jordi Magrane at Weill Cornell College of Medicine who are expected to perform testing in the Friedreich’s ataxia (FA) animal models.
CAT-4001 is a small molecule that activates Nrf2 and inhibits NF-kB, two pathways that have been implicated in FA and ALS. Catabasis has shown that CAT-4001 modulates the Nrf2 and NF-kB pathways in both cellular assays and animal models.