Faron Pharmaceuticals is a Finnish drug discovery and development company based in Turku, Finland.
The company was founded in 2003 by a group led by Markku Jalkanen, who now acts as the company's Chief Executive Officer. It specialises in the development of treatments for acute organ traumas, vascular damage and cancer immunotherapy.[1]
Its lead product Traumakine has been developed to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). It is currently (2020) undergoing international phase III clinical trials after an open-label, early-phase trial showed promising results in the treatment patients with ARDS. The drug is known to function by enhancing lung CD73 expression and increasing production of anti-inflammatory adenosine, such that vascular leaking and escalation of inflammation are reduced. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration FDA has accepted the proposed protocol design for the next Traumakine study in March 2020. The phase III study is a comparison of efficacy in the treatment of patients with ARDS.[2]
In 2020 Traumakine was selected to take part in the WHO Solidarity trial[3] and REMAP-CAP trials to find drugs for the symptoms of Covid_19.