Our preclinical research showed that MRx0518 can reduce tumor volumes and tumor size as a monotherapy. Naturally, Merck is interested in finding ways to expand the number of patients that Keytruda can treat. Firstly, it only works in three-out-of-ten patients secondly, some patients, such as those with non-small cell lung cancer carrying certain mutations, don’t respond. Keytruda is, of course, a successful drug that is generating close to $4 billion in sales in a single quarter. and their checkpoint inhibitor, Keytruda. We are currently working on a clinical trial with Merck & Co. I’m most excited about our oncology program and our prime candidate MRx0518. Which projects are you most excited about? With live biotherapeutics, you can develop a treatment that is likely to be safe and easily delivered by an oral capsule – as opposed to expensive, immunosuppressive injections. Patients (or their parents) often have to decide whether or not to take an immunosuppressant with some very serious side effects. Another example is Crohn’s disease, which can severely impact a patient’s life – even in terms of growth and puberty. It’s not uncommon for someone to opt against an effective treatment because of the potential side effects. What if clinical trials were tests of efficacy alone because the products are inherently safe and tolerable? The huge development risk would be slashed.Īnd from the patient perspective, I’m sure everyone reading this has been touched by cancer in some way, and many will have seen how ill people feel when they’re taking some of the commonly prescribed chemotherapies. Often you’ll see this cited as a reason for high drug prices too – companies have to charge high prices for their successful drugs to recuperate the funds they lost for the unsuccessful ones. Why? More often than not due to safety and toxicology. Pharma companies lose around 30 percent of products at each clinical stage. This is huge from a drug development perspective. Microbes already exist inside the human body, which makes them inherently tolerable and unlikely to produce side effects. Why are live biotherapeutics inherently safe and what does that mean for drug development? But we looked at the data – which included mechanistic details – and thought “there’s a therapeutic here.” We decided to invest in a research project within that group and after realizing that there are many other bacteria with different mechanisms of action – all of which should be inherently safe and free from side effects – we began to appreciate the potential of the microbiome as an untapped resource for pharmaceutical development. They were actually planning on using the bacteria in pig feeds to prevent disease in piglets when they’re being weaned. There was a group that had identified two bacteria that could dampen down the immune system. We travelled up to have a look at the technology and while we were there asked if we could take a look at some of the other stuff they had too. One of those companies was a shark antibody business, based out of Aberdeen University, which Pfizer inherited from Wyeth. In 2011, our fund was looking at around 300 early stage research projects a year to invest in. How did you find out about the microbiome?
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