US DoD funds $2.3m for military-specific Travelan anti-diarrheal

Immuron Limited has secured a grant of A$3.5 million ($2.3 million) to advance its anti-diarrheal medication, Travelan, specifically targeting military use. This funding, backed by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), will facilitate a new collaboration with the Naval Medical Research Command and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. The latter is renowned as the largest biomedical research institution under the DoD's jurisdiction.

The main objective of this partnership is to develop an improved version of Travelan designed to combat pathogens responsible for diarrhoea, as stated in a 16 August press release. This novel formulation will particularly focus on bacterial strains such as Campylobacter, Shigella, and Enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC), which are not addressed by the current version of Travelan.

Travelan is an over-the-counter product derived from bovine colostrum, which is the initial milk produced by cows after giving birth. This colostrum is rich in immunoglobulins, growth factors, and cytokines that contribute to immune defence. Travelan is formulated as a highly refined tablet that helps prevent bacterial colonisation in the digestive tract, thereby reducing travellers’ diarrhoea.

The U.S. DoD has been collaborating with Immuron, an Australian company, to enhance the efficacy of Travelan against diarrhoeal pathogens. The Naval Medical Research Command is actively involved in ongoing research programs focusing on ETEC and Campylobacter, while the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research is studying the medication’s effectiveness against Shigella.

Previously, the DoD allocated $3.43 million for a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled Phase II trial (NCT05933525) to evaluate a once-daily dosing schedule of Travelan for ETEC infection. Interim results, released in March 2024, were promising. They indicated that Travelan reduced moderate to severe ETEC-induced diarrhoea by 36.4% compared to a placebo. The protective efficacy of a once-daily dose was approximately 50% as effective as the current recommendation of three times daily. This outcome was considered significant, especially given the lower-than-anticipated attack rate in the study. Following these positive results, Immuron is moving forward with a Phase III registration strategy in consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

According to Immuron, the new grant is intended to "identify and define pathways to formulate, characterise and perform preclinical testing of a military-relevant combined colostrum product."

Infectious diarrhoea remains the most prevalent illness affecting U.S. troops deployed overseas, as highlighted by a 2019 report from the DoD’s Infectious Disease Threats Prioritisation Panel. In an effort to tackle this issue, the DoD is also investing in vaccine development against ETEC. Scandinavian Biopharma is working on the leading candidate, ETVAX, an oral whole-cell vaccine. This vaccine showed positive safety and immunogenicity in Phase IIb trial results published last year in The Lancet.