Lynk Pharmaceuticals Co Ltd, a clinical-stage innovative drug development company focused on immune and inflammatory diseases, announced on Wednesday that the first patient has been successfully dosed in the Phase II clinical trial evaluating its internally developed innovative drug candidate, LNK01004 ointment, for the treatment of vitiligo.

Conducted at multiple clinical research centres across China, the Phase II study is a randomised, double-blind, vehicle-controlled, parallel-group clinical trial designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of topically administered LNK01004 ointment in adult patients with vitiligo.

Lynk Pharmaceuticals says that LNK01004 ointment is a soft pan-JAK inhibitor with the potential to become a first-in-class therapy, capable of modulating multiple inflammatory cytokine-related signalling pathways simultaneously. Unlike conventional JAK inhibitors, LNK01004 is designed with low systemic exposure and skin-restricted distribution, maintaining pan-JAK inhibitory activity while largely confining drug exposure to skin tissue to achieve an optimal balance between efficacy and safety. To date, LNK01004 has demonstrated skin-restricted characteristics, as well as encouraging efficacy and a favourable safety profile in both preclinical and clinical studies.

In addition to vitiligo, the company is actively advancing the clinical development of LNK01004 for other inflammatory skin diseases, including chronic hand eczema, further expanding its dermatology pipeline.