ATXA Therapeutics Founder Receives 2024 NovaUCD Innovation Award
Professor Therese Kinsella, the founder and CEO of ATXA Therapeutics, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, and a spin-out of the UCD School of Molecular and Biomedical Science, has been named the recipient of the 2024 NovaUCD Innovation Award.
Professor Kinsella, a biochemist and a leading expert in the field of prostanoid biology, was presented with the Award by Professor Orla Feely, President, University College Dublin (UCD) during the annual presentation of the NovaUCD Innovation Awards which took place at the UCD University Club.
Professor Orla Feely, President, UCD said, “The NovaUCD Innovation Awards have become a key annual event highlighting the University’s commitment to innovation and recognise the achievements of our research, innovation and entrepreneurial communities and I congratulate all who have received this year’s Awards. I would also like to wish the Awardees future success as they continue to work towards delivering economic and societal impact in Ireland, and further afield, through their commercialisation, consultancy, entrepreneurial and innovation activities.”
Professor Therese Kinsella. CEO and founder, ATXA Therapeutics and Professor Orla Feely, President, UCD
The annual NovaUCD Innovation Award recognises excellence in innovation or of successes achieved in the commercialisation of UCD research, or other intellectual activity, by the Awardee over a number of years.
ATXA Therapeutics committed to the advancement of innovative, life-changing treatments for cardiopulmonary diseases, was founded by Professor Kinsella in 2015.
The company is based on research which she and her team carried out at the UCD Conway Institute over 20 years which was funded by Enterprise Ireland, the Welcome Trust, Irish Cancer Society, Health Research Board, Science Foundation Ireland, and Irish Heart Foundation, amongst others.
ATXA’s focus is the development of its lead candidate drug NTP42 for the treatment of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH). PAH is a devastating disease of the lungs and heart with an urgent unmet need for new improved therapies. While the condition itself is classed as a rare or orphan disease, affecting 15-50 patients per million of the population, it carries an enormous health burden with an annual spend in excess of $8 billion globally on prescribed medicines alone in 2023.
Through NTP42, which has orphan drug designations from both the EMA in Europe and the FDA in the US, ATXA aims to offer improved treatment options to prescribing physicians.
The company has also successfully completed initial First-in-Human Phase I clinical trials for NTP42 in healthy male volunteers. Earlier this year, the company successfully completed a bridging clinical trial testing of a novel oral capsule formulation of NTP42 in men and women.
On receiving the 2024 NovaUCD Innovation Award, Professor Therese Kinsella, CEO and Founder, ATXA Therapeutics, said, “It is indeed a great honour for me to accept this Award from UCD both personally and on behalf of everyone on the ATXA team who have been part of our success journey so far.”
She added, “The company is working towards commencing Phase II clinical trials in PAH patients to demonstrate NTP42’s clinical efficiency. Depending on securing approval from the EMA and FDA regulatory agencies, as well as the necessary inward investment, the Phase II trials are due to run from 2025 through to late 2026.”
The company has raised over €17 million in funding (equity and grant) to date and funders include the European Innovation Council Accelerator Programme, Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Programme, Enterprise Ireland and private investors.
In addition Professor Kinsella and ATXA have a patent estate of 16 granted patents, in Europe, USA, Canada, Japan, and Australia, with numerous others filed globally protecting their drugs out to the mid-2040s. The company currently employs 5 dedicated full-time employees along with a team of expert external advisors and is headquartered at the UCD Conway Institute.
The annual NovaUCD Innovation Awards highlight successes made in areas of knowledge transfer, consultancy, entrepreneurship and the promotion of an innovation culture, by members of the UCD research, innovation and entrepreneurial community.
A total of 7 Awards were presented by Professor Orla Feely, UCD President. The other Awardees are;
2024 NovaUCD Invention of the Year Award: Associate Professor Nan Zhang, UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering
2024 NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year Award: EpiCapture
2024 NovaUCD Consultancy of the Year Award: Professor Fiona Timmins, UCD School of School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems
2024 NovaUCD Licence of the Year Award: Go Eve
2024 NovaUCD Founder of the Year Award: John Byrne, CEO and Founder, Corlytics
2024 NovaUCD Innovation Champion of the Year Award: Professor Nick Holden, UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering.
ENDS
12 April 2024
For more information contact Micéal Whelan, Communications and Media Relations Manager, NovaUCD, UCD Research and Innovation, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie