Xeptiva Therapeutics
Pipeline / Xep01 · Dog · Osteoarthritis chronic pain

Xep01 · Chronic pain in canine osteoarthritis

A ther­a­peu­tic vaccine that stim­u­lates the dog’s own anti­bod­ies against NGF and Sub­stance P, the two medi­a­tors of the neu­ro­genic inflam­ma­tion that sus­tains osteoarthri­tis pain.

ProgramXep01
SpeciesDog
IndicationOsteoarthritis chronic pain
StageClinical trial
The disease

Why it matters

60%of dogs aged 4 to 10 years show radiographic osteoarthritis

Source: Millis and Hecht, JAVMA, 2025

Osteoarthri­tis (OA) is a common chronic con­di­tion char­ac­ter­ized by the degen­er­a­tion of joint car­ti­lage, inflam­ma­tion and the for­ma­tion of bony growths within the joints. It causes chronic pain, inflam­ma­tion and stiff­ness, lim­it­ing mobil­ity and quality of life.

Dogs are usually diag­nosed between 8 and 13 years of age, late in the disease, because early signs of pain go unrec­og­nized.

Man­ag­ing chronic pain requires active par­tic­i­pa­tion from owners: giving med­i­ca­tion cor­rectly, fol­low­ing treat­ment plans and adapt­ing the home. New approaches are needed to make pain man­age­ment more effec­tive, simpler and safer.

Target and mechanism

What the vaccine does

Xep01 is based on rNGFSP, a recom­bi­nant fusion immuno­gen that elicits anti­bod­ies against two medi­a­tors of neu­ro­genic inflam­ma­tion: nerve growth factor (NGF) and Sub­stance P. In the osteoarthritic joint, Sub­stance P released by sen­si­tized nerve endings acti­vates mast cells and sus­tains chronic neu­ro­genic inflam­ma­tion, which keeps NGF levels high. By neu­tral­iz­ing both, Xep01 targets the loop that keeps the pain chronic. The tech­nol­ogy is described in a peer-reviewed pub­li­ca­tion in Biotech­nol­ogy Reports (2026).

How the platform works →
Evidence

Safety and efficacy

Safety

  • Studies in dogs showed that Xep01 is safe and well tol­er­ated.
  • A safety pilot trial in healthy dogs con­firmed no sig­nif­i­cant local or sys­temic adverse effects.
  • An expanded safety study in 120 dogs, run by an inde­pen­dent CRO, is under­way with no sys­temic events to date.

Efficacy

  • Studies in dogs showed that Xep01 is effec­tive for pain asso­ci­ated with canine osteoarthri­tis.
  • A double-blind, placebo-con­trolled trial of Xep01 has been com­pleted, with pos­i­tive effi­cacy results.
  • Long-lasting pain relief, improved mobil­ity and well-being, and less need for pain med­i­ca­tion in dogs with advanced osteoarthri­tis.
  • A cohort of dogs has been fol­lowed for two years with mul­ti­ple booster doses, with a sus­tained clin­i­cal response and no sys­temic events asso­ci­ated with vac­ci­na­tion.
  • Recruit­ment is com­plete in all ongoing Xep01 clin­i­cal trials.
Partnering

Interested in this program?

Pro­to­cols, study reports and the reg­u­la­tory package are avail­able to qual­i­fied part­ners under con­fi­den­tial­ity.

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