Tar­sus nabs key da­ta in hunt to re­pur­pose dog drug as cure for eye par­a­site

Eight months af­ter their $101 mil­lion IPO, Tar­sus Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals say they’ve cleared the first of two tri­als need­ed to prove to their FDA that their re­pur­posed dog drug can suc­cess­ful­ly ban­ish mites from pa­tients’ eyes.

The Cal­i­for­nia biotech an­nounced Mon­day that, in a Phase II/III study, 81% of pa­tients with the com­mon eye in­fes­ta­tion De­mod­ex ble­phar­i­tis achieved a “clin­i­cal­ly mean­ing­ful” cure of in­fes­ta­tion-in­duced le­sions af­ter tak­ing the drug, called TP-03. That com­pared to 23% of pa­tients on place­bo. And, on the sec­ondary end­point, 68% of pa­tients saw their mites erad­i­cat­ed en­tire­ly — com­pared to 18% on place­bo.

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