KalVista Pharmaceuticals Wins £2.4m Biomedical Catalyst Grant to Further Develop Oral Plasma Kallikrein Inhibitors as a Treatment for Diabetic Macular Edema

KalVista Pharmaceuticals Wins £2.4m Biomedical Catalyst Grant to Further Develop Oral Plasma Kallikrein Inhibitors as a Treatment for Diabetic Macular Edema PR Newswire SOUTHAMPTON, England, November 5, 2012 SOUTHAMPTON, England, November 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- KalVista Pharmaceuticals ("KalVista") today announces it has won a £2.4 million grant from the Technology Strategy Board under the UK Government's £180 million Biomedical Catalyst funding initiative for research and development in the life sciences. KalVista will use the new funding to accelerate the development of an oral plasma kallikrein inhibitor for the treatment of diabetic macular edema (DME), the leading cause of working-age adult blindness. The current first-line treatment for DME is laser or Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) inhibitors but there is still no National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) approved pharmacological therapy available in the UK so there remains a medical and economic need for these patients. Plasma kallikrein is an enzyme recently shown to be elevated in the vitreous of DME patients and to cause excessive vascular permeability in models of diabetes, suggesting its potential as a novel VEGF-independent target for the treatment of DME. The Biomedical Catalyst grant will allow KalVista to complete pre-clinical development of oral plasma kallikrein inhibitors identified by the Company and prepare a drug candidate ready for Phase I clinical development.