Jaguar Animal Health Inc (NASDAQ:JAGX) Make Changes To Chair Scientific Advisory Board

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Jaguar Animal Health Inc (NASDAQ:JAGX) and Napo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. reported the appointment of Dr. Pravin Chaturvedi, as Chair of the combined firm’s Scientific Advisory Board, after the projected close of the planned merger of the two companies.

Dr. Chaturvedi has worked as Chair of Napo Pharmaceuticals’ Scientific Advisory Board since March 2017. He is responsible for offering guidance on tactics, oversight and strategy pertaining advancing the commercialization and development of the firms’ drug pipelines, comprising, but not confined to, SB-300 and Mytesi®.

The details

From 2006 to 2013, Dr. Chaturvedi worked as Napo’s CSO and has been a scientific adviser to the firm since 2014. His record of successful development comprises participating in and/or directing development efforts for as many as seven drugs, including Mytesi® product, which is permitted by the U.S. FDA for the indicative relief of noninfectious diarrhea in people with HIV/AIDS on antiretroviral treatment.

For this indication, Dr. Chaturvedi directed the key opinion leader measures that contributed to the use of adaptive clinical study design for the Mytesi® pivotal study and its approval by the U.S. FDA. As reported on March 31, 2017, Jaguar and Napo finalized a definitive merger deal.

The two companies are in the process of assessing probable follow-on indications for Mytesi® under the expected combination of the product pipelines of these firms. Dr. Chaturvedi is chairing the study of Mytesi® for probable follow-on indications, which comprise irritable bowel syndrome, chemotherapy-induced diarrhea, for which POC data is already in hand, diarrhea and inflammatory bowel diseases ensuing from hospital-acquired infections like Clostridium difficile.

Napo recently organized a Scientific Advisory Board conference with expert gastroenterologists, who offered advice on trial populations and designs in IBD and IBS. Douglas Drossman, MD noted that the safety profile of crofelemer comprises a benefit that differentiates it from other gastrointestinal products.