News
June 20, 2019
BioVersys announces a EUR 6.92 Million funding of its TRIC-TB project by the IMI2 JU and extends its successful collaboration with long term partners
Basel, Switzerland, June 20, 2019. 13:00 CET
BioVersys has been awarded EUR 6.92 Million funding for TRIC-TB from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 853800. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA.
BioVersys is pleased to announce that it has received an IMI2 JU grant of 6.92 million EUR to fund further preclinical through to first clinical development of candidate molecules from the TRIC-TB project which have been developed in a successful collaboration with GSK, the Institut Pasteur de Lille and University of Lille (with groups of Nicolas Willand, Alain Baulard and Benoit Deprez). The project previously received valuable financial support from the Wellcome Trust.
TRIC-TB is one of BioVersys’ leading pipeline assets directed at tuberculosis (TB), based on BioVersys’ award winning Transcriptional Regulatory Inhibitory Compounds (TRICs) Platform which reaches a significant new milestone with the selection of two pre-clinical candidates and validation through the support of the IMI2 JU and the extension of the R&D collaboration with GSK. The funding provided by the IMI2 JU under the AntiMicrobial Resistance (AMR) Accelerator Program will allow for this unique Global Health project to continue its progress through IND enabling studies and into First in Human studies by early 2020.
Dr. Marc Gitzinger, CEO and co-founder of BioVersys: “We are grateful for the funding being provided to BioVersys for TRIC-TB by the IMI2 JU, European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA. To meet the challenge of the burgeoning AMR problem, continued R&D investment is vitally important. BioVersys is determined to make a difference in AMR patient care world-wide by delivering efficacious, novel therapeutic treatment options that can deliver better patient outcomes. We are also delighted to continue our successful collaboration with GSK as we progress together compounds that will soon enter clinical studies.”
Dr. David Barros-Aguirre VP and Head of Tuberculosis Research Unit, Global Health R&D, GSK: GSK is committed to the discovery of novel treatments for tuberculosis and in particular to the drug resistant forms of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, an area of high unmet medical need. The TRIC-TB project is an opportunity to extend our collaboration with BioVersys from discovery through to clinical development in patients with TB. The project applies an innovative approach by selectively influencing transcriptional regulation to tackle resistance to current TB drugs. We believe this approach has the potential to provide a readily implementable solution to multi-drug resistant TB patients worldwide.
Dr. Serio Lociuro, CSO of BioVersys: “We are pleased that the IMI2 JU has provided this grant to BioVersys which supports the further development in tuberculosis of this new class of molecules against a new target class (Transcription Regulators). Over the last years, we have worked very closely with GSK on this program and achieved a number of important milestones together, and we now look forward to continuing our successful partnership.“