Biotech firm Tiziana Life Sciences Ltd. (TLSA) had some good news to share on Friday, and it involves a nasal spray that might actually be doing what it's supposed to do. The company released quantitative PET imaging results from the third patient in its Phase 2 trial, and the numbers look promising.
The trial is testing intranasal foralumab, the company's lead candidate, as a treatment for Multiple System Atrophy (MSA), a rare and nasty neurodegenerative condition. The latest data shows a significant reduction in neuroinflammatory activity in the brain regions that matter most for this disease, and it happened after the patient finished the full dosing regimen.
Consistent Results Across Patients
When the researchers compared the patient's PET scans before and after treatment, they saw notable decreases in radiotracer uptake. The improvements were concentrated in the areas that MSA hits hardest: the cerebellar white matter and basal ganglia. Specifically, the third patient showed up to a 34% decrease in standardized uptake value (SUV) and a 26% drop in standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR).
What's really encouraging is that these results are in line with what the first two patients experienced. Those folks saw about a 35% reduction in SUV and a 24% reduction in SUVR. So the drug seems to be consistently lowering neuroinflammation across different patients, which is exactly what you want to see in a clinical trial.
Targeting a Rare Neurodegenerative Disorder
MSA is a tough disease. It causes severe autonomic dysfunction, parkinsonism, and cerebellar ataxia, and there's no cure. That's why this data matters. Intranasal foralumab is a fully human, anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody, but it's formulated differently than traditional anti-CD3 treatments. It works by regulating the immune system through mucosal tolerance, which is a fancy way of saying it teaches the immune system to chill out without causing the systemic toxicities that often come with other approaches.
The company plans to keep testing the drug in more patients to confirm these findings and get a better sense of how well it can reduce neuroinflammation in people with MSA. It's still early days, but the consistency across patients is a good sign.
In other news from Tiziana, the company dosed the last patient in its Phase 2a trial of intranasal foralumab for non-active Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis back in June. Topline data from that study is expected in late third quarter or early fourth quarter of 2026, so we'll be watching for that.
As for the stock, TLSA shares were up 6.19% at $1.04 at the time of publication on Friday, according to market data. Investors seem to like what they're seeing, and it's not hard to understand why. A drug that could actually reduce brain inflammation in a disease like MSA would be a big deal.
