Meletios Therapeutics, a French biotech company focusing on the research and development of next-generation antiviral treatments, announced today that it has received €1.2 million in financing from BpiFrance's Deeptech development program. This financing resulted from the obtention by Meletios Therapeutics of Bpifrance’s "Deeptech" label.
A Deeptech is a company whose activity is closely linked to the world of research and which proposes a disruptive innovation compared to existing technologies. Bpifrance has judged that Meletios Therapeutics’ technology, which enables the rapid development of innovative broad-spectrum antiviral treatments to effectively fight future epidemic waves, meets these criteria and has granted it its "Deeptech" label and financial support.
The technology originating from Institut Pasteur and developed by Meletios Therapeutics is based on the generation, identification and the use of Defective Viral Genomes (or DVGs), which are truncated copies of a virus that have lost their pathogenic properties. Some specific DVGs, however, retain their ability to use cellular mechanisms to replicate and compete for these processes with infectious viruses. These DVGs therefore have a strong capacity to parasitize or even inhibit the replication of the original virus.
This new financing from Bpifrance will allow Meletios Therapeutics to validate its DVG platform and to develop its first candidates from this platform until they enter the clinical phase of their development.
Viruses are indeed capable of spreading very quickly in the population and this is all the truer in the case of new emerging viruses whose properties are not yet fully know
At the same time, Meletios Therapeutics has just obtained the authorisation from the Pasteur Institute to extend the field of the exclusive license granted by the institute at the end of February 2022. This license is linked to an innovative technological platform for the generation of DVGs capable of parasitising and inhibiting viral replication in a very efficient manner. Meletios Therapeutics initially licensed this technology for Zika and Chikungunya infections, two diseases with a high medical need no available treatment and affecting millions of people worldwide.
The extension of this license agreement will now allow Meletios Therapeutics to apply this highly specific method of generating new DVGs to the entire family of flaviviruses (dengue virus, yellow fever virus, west nile virus, etc.), alphaviruses (equine encephalitis virus, Sindbis virus, etc.) and coronaviruses (SARS, MERS, etc.).
The know-how transfer of this technology from the Pasteur Institute to Meletios Therapeutics was initiated upon signature of the agreement and is now complete. As a result, Meletios Therapeutics now has an operational technology platform enabling it to identify, select and generate, within nine months and on an industrial scale, the most promising DVGs for a targeted viral indication.
"One of our main challenges in the development of this new generation of treatments was to develop a safe, effective and above all rapid method for the identification and supply of DVGs in the context of viral epidemics. Viruses are indeed capable of spreading very quickly in the population and this is all the truer in the case of new emerging viruses whose properties are not yet fully known. Therefore, there is a real challenge to develop and make available to clinicians a rapid and effective therapeutic response to these infections," said Catherine Martre, Chief Executive Officer of Meletios Therapeutics.