Matinas BioPharma announced that University of Minnesota Medical School researchers published results from the Phase 2 EnACT trial evaluating MAT2203 for the treatment of cryptococcal meningitis as a Major Article and Editor's Choice in Clinical Infectious Diseases, an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). MAT2203 is an oral and non-toxic, LNC formulation of the potent antifungal drug amphotericin B. EnACT was a Phase 2 prospective, randomized, open-label, sequential cohort study, financially supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), evaluating the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of MAT2203 in 100 HIV-positive persons with cryptococcal meningitis compared to 41 persons randomized to receive standard of care intravenous amphotericin B. The EnACT trial included a total of four cohorts of participants, with the first two cohorts testing MAT2203 as early step-down therapy following initial treatment with IV amphotericin B during the induction period, and the second two cohorts testing MAT2203 as potentially all oral therapy. Cohorts 1 and 3 were safety lead-ins to Cohorts 2 and 4, respectively.

The induction period for all patients in each cohort (active or control) was 14 days, followed by an additional four weeks of treatment (active or control) during a consolidation/maintenance period.