Voclosporin

Voclosporin is an experimental immunosuppressant drug being developed by Aurinia Pharmaceuticals. It is being studied as a potential treatment for lupus nephritis (LN) and uveitis. It is an analog of ciclosporin that has enhanced action against calcineurin and greater metabolic stability. Voclosporin was discovered by Robert T. Foster and his team at Isotechnika in the mid 1990s. Isotechnika was founded in 1993 and merged with Aurinia Pharmaceuticals in 2013.

Initially, voclosporin was a mixture of equal proporations of cis and trans geometric isomers of amino acid-1 modified cyclosporin. Later, in collaboration with Roche in Basel, Switzerland, voclosporin's manufacturing was changed to yield the predominantly trans isomer which possesses most of the beneficial effect of the drug (immunosuppression) in the treatment of organ transplantation and autoimmune diseases.