Lexaria Bioscience announces interim results from diabetes animal study

Lexaria Bioscience announces that interim results from the first four weeks of dosing in its ongoing diabetes animal study WEIGHT-A24-1 have been received and have already produced several noteworthy findings. Unlimited food and water has been provided to the animals for the entire duration of the Study. During the initial acclimation phase of 34 days before the beginning of dosing, the animals gained 10.9% body weight on average. During the subsequent 28 days of DehydraTECH-processed drug therapy dosing, all test articles showed either a stark decrease in the rate of body weight gain or, in select cases, the beginning of body weight reduction. DehydraTECH-CBD formulation 3 and DehydraTECH-liraglutide have produced the largest weight loss results thus far of -1.50% and -1.58%, respectively. Of note, only in Study arms A, B, C, and E did any individual animals lose 5.0% or more body weight during these first 28 days of treatment. An additional 56 days of dosing remains across all treatment groups. This is the first time that DehydraTECH processing was applied to the GLP-1 drug liraglutide, and it is encouraging to witness its relative outperformance. Although liraglutide was administered as an oral DehydraTECH-enabled dose in this Study, it is currently only sold and prescribed as a subcutaneous injection. Liraglutide is currently available commercially by Novo Nordisk sold under the brand names Victoza and Saxenda, but the related patents have begun to expire and open the door to new competitors. For example, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries recently launched the first generic injectable version of this GLP-1 drug. Study arm G is the first time that pure semaglutide was tested with DehydraTECH processing without the SNAC technology found within the Rybelsus tablets. It is of interest that it has, so far, apparently performed nearly identically in body weight gain attenuation to Study arm E which is the best performing DehydraTECH-processed reformulated Rybelsus composition that includes the SNAC technology. Another important objective has now been reached in evaluating the results of the first 28 days of dosing among the first eight Study arms that, together, constitute Cohort 1 of the Study: Performance superiority has been observed among the various formulations, allowing the Study team to select the best performers for inclusion in the subsequent Cohort 2 Study work. Dosing in those final four Study arms that constitute Cohort 2 of the Study has begun and is expected to be completed in mid-October. Those final four Study arms include a positive control arm and a placebo arm, as well as a combined DehydraTECH-semaglutide with DehydraTECH-CBD arm, and a combined DehydraTECH-liraglutide with DehydraTECH-CBD arm. In all cases and as per design in an exploratory, directionally informative Study of this nature, animal populations were not intended to be large enough to necessarily evidence statistical significance, and readers are reminded that these data are indicative only of apparent trends that have not been analysed statistically. Blood glucose data for the first four weeks of dosing has also been received, is being processed, and will be released soon. Pharmacokinetic data for the first four weeks has not arrived yet and will be released when available.