What's in the pipeline?

In addition to our ongoing work to expand the clinical application of Argatroban for stroke and PCI (percutaneous coronary intervention), our leading programs are our endothelin antagonists and two anti-inflammatory compounds, a selectin antagonistand a VLA-4 antagonist. Our endothelin antagonists selectively block the vasoconstrictive effect of endothelin at the A receptor, and may provide major therapeutic advantages in pulmonary hypertension. Our selectin antagonist interferes with an early stage of the inflammatory cascade to block leukocyte rolling, and we are pursuing its application in asthma, psorisis and atopic dermatitis. Our VLA-4 antagonist acts at a later stage of the inflammatory process to inhibit leukocyte attachment to the vessel walls, and asthma is our initial clinical target. Farther upstream, our R&D efforts are focusing on apoptosis, angiogenesis and vascular proliferative disease.