Lynk Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage innovative drug development company focused on immune and inflammatory diseases, has successfully dosed the first patient in the phase 2 clinical trial evaluating its internally developed innovative drug candidate, LNK01004 ointment, for the treatment of vitiligo.
This milestone marks an important step forward in the clinical development of LNK01004 for this indication.
The phase 2 study is a randomised, double-blind, vehicle-controlled, parallel-group clinical trial designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of topically administered LNK01004 ointment in adult patients with vitiligo.
The study is jointly led by Professor Jianzhong Zhang and Professor Cheng Zhou from the Department of Dermatology, Peking University People’s Hospital, and is being conducted at multiple clinical research centres across China.
LNK01004 ointment is a soft pan-JAK inhibitor with the potential to become a first-in-class therapy, capable of modulating multiple inflammatory cytokine-related signalling pathways simultaneously. Unlike conventional JAK inhibitors, LNK01004 is designed with low systemic exposure and skin-restricted distribution, maintaining pan-JAK inhibitory activity while largely confining drug exposure to skin tissue to achieve an optimal balance between efficacy and safety.
To date, LNK01004 has demonstrated skin-restricted characteristics as well as encouraging efficacy and a favourable safety profile in both preclinical and clinical studies. In addition to vitiligo, the company is actively advancing the clinical development of LNK01004 for other inflammatory skin diseases, including chronic hand eczema, further expanding its dermatology pipeline.
