Our drug candidates
AON-D21 (anti-C5a): AON-D21, a complement C5a inhibitor, has just demonstrated efficacy in a Phase 2 trial in patients diagnosed with severe community-acquired pneumonia: AON-D21 reduced the number of days on respiratory support, the length of stay in the intensive care unit, and the total length of hospital stay in two relevant subgroups of patients. The study (ADCAP trial) was conducted in 150 patients in five European countries and the United States. A complete data set incl. an extensive biomarker analysis, will become available in Nov. 2026.
Pneumonia is a serious infectious disease – underserved and commonly neglected – with a bn Dollar potential. The aim in severe pneumonia is to treat critical cases with excessive immune reactions, which can often lead to more severe disease progression or even a fatal outcome.
AON-D21 neutralizes complement factor C5a, a central player of the immune system. C5a is believed to trigger excessive immune responses in severe inflammatory diseases and infections, often causing multi-organ failure and death.
In preclinical models of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), AON-D21 also showed efficacy, particularly in combination with immune checkpoint inhibition. In several tumor entities, C5a is released into the tumor microenvironment to help the tumor to camouflage itself from T-cell attacks by attracting and polarizing myeloid cells, highlighting a different role of the target complement C5a in oncology.
We plan to start a Phase I/II clinical trial in NSCLC in Q2 2027.
The broad role of the target C5a as an orchestrator of the human immune system holds promise to expand the indication spectrum into further diseases where immune modulation is desirable.
AON-S08 (anti-IL8): AON-S08 is a sub-nanomolar inhibitor of interleukin-8 (also called CXCL8). This drug candidate is being evaluated in preclinical studies.
