Spider venom heart drug moves to clinical trials

A male scientist in a lab coat and goggles holds a pipette above a large black spider in a container.

Professor Glenn King in the lab with a funnel web spider.

7 October 2024

A University of Queensland-led project to develop the first-ever drug to treat heart attack and protect donor hearts will move to human clinical trials, after receiving $17.8 million in funding from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).

Professor Glenn King from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) said the 4 year trial would assess the potential of Hi1a – a peptide in the venom of the K’gari funnel web spider – as a treatment to prevent heart damage during a heart attack or donor heart procurement.

“Our team showed that in animal models, Hi1a protects the heart from damage sustained due to lack of oxygen during a heart attack or during donor heart retrieval,” Professor King said.

“This MRFF funding will enable us to undertake human clinical trials to test a miniaturised version of Hi1a as a drug to treat heart attack and protect donor hearts during the retrieval process.

“If successful it will improve patient survival and quality of life, dramatically expand the pool of donor hearts available for transplantation and significantly reduce healthcare costs.”

The team includes researchers from UQ, the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and the Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute as well as clinicians at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne and The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane.

IMB’s Associate Professor Nathan Palpant led the studies showing the efficacy of Hi1a in cardiac disease models, and said a drug to treat heart attacks would have significant impact.

“Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death in Australia,” Dr Palpant said.

“Almost 60,000 Australians are hospitalised with a heart attack every year and 7000 will not survive.

“Of those that do survive, a quarter will develop debilitating heart failure within one year of their attack.

“A transplant is the only cure for heart failure but there’s a severe worldwide shortage of donor hearts, partly due to the damage that occurs during the retrieval process.

“Despite the huge socioeconomic burden of heart attack and heart failure, there is not a single drug to limit the loss of heart cells during an attack or to protect donor hearts – our team hopes to change this.”

The clinical trial is the culmination of years of work by the research team investigating the use of Hi1a as a treatment for heart attack and stroke, and to increase the viability of donor hearts.

The project will also involve Brisbane-based biotech company Infensa Bioscience, where Professor King is Chief Scientific Officer and Dr Palpant is Head of Biology.

Research showing that Hi1a had met critical benchmarks towards becoming a treatment after passing a series of preclinical tests was published in 2024 in The European Heart Journal.