Nitto Denko Corporation (Nitto) announces the initiation of a phase-1b clinical study in Japan from June 2015 at Hokkaido University Hospital.

Nitto has been developing an RNAi based drug for treating fibrosis in the liver and other organs since 2008 in collaboration with Sapporo Medical University and Hokkaido University. In March 2014, a Phase-1a clinical study in healthy volunteers was completed in the US and no remarkable adverse events were observed, even at the highest dosage tested.

After dosage completion at Cohort 1 of Phase-1b/2 clinical study, Nitto started Cohort 2 adding new clinical site in Bulgaria for the assessment of safety and efficacy from April 2015.

Nitto is planning to conduct global clinical trials from Phase IIb and will update the study results at conferences and/or via news releases in the future.

Nitto continues to make significant efforts towards delivering new drugs for fibrosis and other intractable diseases to patients in need.