Pherecydes Pharma receives €900,000 funding
To part-finance Pacoburns, which is exploring the use of bacteriophages to combat infection
Pherecydes Pharma, a French biotechnology company specialising in the research and development of lytic bacteriophages for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes, has received funding of €900,000 from France’s General Directorate for Armaments (DGA).
The funding will part-finance the Pacoburns project, which is exploring the use of bacteriophages to combat bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotics, especially skin infections.
The Institute of Genetics and Microbiology of the University of Paris XI and the Armed Forces Institute of Biomedical Research (IRBA) are also involved in this project. The University will handle electronic microscopy and bacteriophage sequencing, while IRBA will provide a mouse model adapted to the initial preclinical evaluations.
Using relevant animal models, Pacoburns will evaluate the therapeutic efficacy, safety and pharmacodynamics of two cocktails of bacteriophages.
The first is for infections caused by escherichia coli type bacteria, and the second for infections caused by pseudomonas aeruginosa, and more specifically for treating open burn wounds infected by these resistant germs. Trials on humans are scheduled to begin during 2013.
‘Despite optimising the use of antibiotics, situations of therapeutic impasse are increasingly common in the case of multi-resistant bacteria,’ said Patrick Jault, head of the burns treatment centre of Percy military hospital near Paris, and the future coordinator of the multicentre trial in man.
‘It is thus essential to explore new avenues, and bacteriophages are one of the most promising. It is now crucial to evaluate their merits and their therapeutic potential in humans.’
The Pacoburns project will enable Pherecydes Pharma to speed up the development of its leading therapeutic products, in particular through facilitating their future evaluation in man by the major burns units of military and civilian hospitals. The company then intends to extend the topical application of its cocktails to other skin pathologies (such as varicose ulcers), after that to test new products administered by aerosol and lastly by the internal route.