EyeGene said on Friday in a public filing that its phase 2 clinical trial of EG-Myocin, a drug candidate for the treatment of myocardial ischemia and reperfusion injury, failed to show statistically significant changes in myocardial infarction size. 

The study explored the effectiveness and safety of EG-Myocin subcutaneous administration in 60 male and female adult patients with acute ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).They were administered subcutaneously once daily for for five days  for patients at Severance Hospital and eight other domestic hospitals.

However, the changes in myocardial infarction size based on the final infarct size (FIS) which was measured as the primary outcome of the study using Cardiac MRI on day 4 and week 12, failed to show the statistical significance of the drug.

Additionally, the therapeutic effect on the edema-based area-at-risk (AAR) using microsatellite instability (MSI) screening of EG-Myocin in the clinical trial was not significant, and no difference was observed between the treatment and placebo groups.

Furthermore, the results also showed that the safety of EG-Myocin was not different from placebo as a result of analyzing laboratory tests such as the evaluation of abnormal cases, vital signs and physical examination findings, hematology and hematochemical tests, and urine tests.

"Animals can be observed anatomically to confirm the therapeutic effect of the drug but evaluation indicators based on the mechanism of action of EG-Myocin in humans are limited,” said a company official. "We plan to conduct further research to explore alternative evaluation methods that can explore the effectiveness of our myocardial ischemia and reperfusion injury."