Ferring Pharmaceuticals and non-profit biomedical research centre the Institut Pasteur are to collaborate on drug development for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
The collaboration will aim to identify and develop bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, which were commonly used prior to the development of antibiotics. The use of bacteriophages has again come to the forefront of the field due to concerns of increased bacterial resistance due to overuse of antibiotics.
Per Falk, executive VP and chief scientific officer at Ferring Pharmaceuticals, commented: “Data generated in our collaboration with the Institut Pasteur and the fact that many patients with IBD are colonised by bacteria known to cause aggressive infections, show us that bacteriophages have an important role to play in the treatment of IBD.
“A dedicated programme will now start to develop a Ferring medicine from these research findings.”
Following a recent finding linking infection to the onset of Crohn’s Disease, a chronic IBD condition, Ferring and the Paris-based Institut Pasteur’s new programme will aim to test the feasibility and efficacy of these bacteriophages in controlled clinical trials.
Isabelle Buckle, executive VP, technology transfer and industrial partnership at the Insistut Pasteur, added: “It is very exciting to see bacteriophages, discovered many years ago, return to bring a real advantage to patients today.
“The collaboration with Ferring is a very good example of a successful academic and industry partnership. We believe that IBD patients will benefit from it.”