SER-252 (POZ-apomorphine)
Serina Therapeutics’ lead clinical asset, is designed to optimize the treatment of Parkinson’s disease by extending and stabilizing therapeutic exposure of apomorphine via a twice weekly subcutaneous injection. Built on Serina’s proprietary POZ Platform™, SER-252 links apomorphine to cleavable pendant groups, enabling sustained drug exposure that keeps patients in the therapeutic window longer. By reengineering a well-characterized molecule through advanced polymer conjugation, SER-252 aims to deliver more consistent symptom control, improved tolerability, and enhanced quality of life for people living with Parkinson’s disease.
Our proprietary POZ Platform™ is based on a synthetic, water soluble, low viscosity, bio-compatible polymer called poly (2-oxazoline). During the synthesis steps, a predictable amount of drug is incorporated on the backbone of the polymer using pendant alkyne groups and metal catalyzed “click chemistry”.
SER-252: Redefining The Treatment
Paradigms for Advanced Parkinson’s Disease
Parkinson’s treatment has not really changed in over 50 years
Patients are typically treated with an oral levodopa (LD) – carbidopa (CD) combination to control their symptoms. This is an effective treatment in the early to mid-stages of the disease but over time patients develop dyskinesia (involuntary motor fluctuation) due to the phasic peak / trough nature of short acting LD. Patients with advancing disease inevitably become inadequately controlled by oral LD/CD and adjunct oral therapies, developing more frequent “OFF” time – where their existing medications simply do not allow them to perform even routine activities.
A significant unmet need for Continuous Dopaminergic Stimulation (CDS)
Approved and emerging alternatives that provide CDS in advanced patients are highly invasive products with significant quality-of-life limitations. These therapeutic approaches typically involve the patient wearing an electronic pump and tubing set 16 to 24 hours per day, 7 days per week to deliver a continuous infusion of LD/CD or apomorphine (a dopamine agonist). A home healthcare aide is usually required to set up, program, and maintain the device and to manage local infusion site reactions. Serina is positioning our SER-252 POZ Apomorphine drug candidate as a best-in-class product that overcomes all these limitations.
POZ Apomorphine is a potential Best-in-Class treatment for advanced patients
Apomorphine is similar to LD in terms of efficacy, but not dependent on the patient having intact presynaptic machinery to convert LD to dopamine. We anticipate entering clinical studies in 2025 with a product candidate that can provide CDS with no infusion pump, no adverse skin reactions and no healthcare aide needed to manage the therapy. Apomorphine drug approvals in the US have been limited to rescue indications, due to its short half-life and serious adverse local administration site reactions. SER-252 is a preventive (not rescue) therapy with the potential to increase “ON” time, decrease “OFF” time, prevent dyskinesia, and may allow some patients to titrate off all LD.
10M
People in the world currently living with Parkinson’s disease
Every
9 Mins
A person is diagnosed with Parkinson's in US alone
50+
Years with no major clinical advances. Levadopa since 1967
POZ Apomorphine is Partnered
with Enable Injections
The highly differentiated target product profile that POZ Platform™ + enFuse™ enables has the potential to be a best-in-class, first line treatment of choice for advanced patients whose symptoms are inadequately controlled by current therapies. This convenient wearable technology is anticipated to be on-body for just 10 to 20 minutes, twice per week, versus highly invasive, continuously worn electronic pumps and tubing that require healthcare aide management.
Vial of SER-252 is pushed on to the port
Automatically filters solution and loads the device in less than one minute
Push button starts injection and pops up when injection is complete – no programming required
The needle is never seen
1
Compact device with no tubing involved
2
No need for healthcare aide to administer
