Cross Infection

Oct. 22, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- RespiriNTM Programme allows BioVersys’ NTM project to access up to €2 million of non-dilutive funding BioVersys taps into key expertise of the established RespiriNTM consortium members and will lead development of its candidates through preclinical and clinical studies BioVersys’ NTM candidates are derived from the company’s proprietary Ansamycin Chemistry platform and are being developed to address difficult-to-treat Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) and Mycobacterium abscessus subspecies (MAB) infections BioVersys AG, a multi-asset, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focusing on research and development of novel antibacterial products for serious life-threatening infections caused by multi-drug resistant ("MDR") bacteria, announced today that it has joined the EU-funded RespiriNTM programme, an 8-year journey exploring multiple approaches to determine new targets for anti-mycobacterial compounds, define and optimize novel inhibitors and move these through the process of hit-to-lead up until the First-in-Human trials. BioVersys’ in-house non-tubercular mycobacteria (NTM) project will have access to up to approximately €2 million in non-dilutive funding from the original IMI2 RespiriNTM grant of approximately €5.7 million, and to key capabilities of established consortium partners to develop novel candidates to address NTM pulmonary disease (NTM-PD). NTM-PD is estimated to affect more than 86,000 people in the US according to the American Lung Association and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global health threat with currently available therapeutics becoming more and more obsolete due to AMR.1 This is of greatest concern when addressing NTM-PD, as chronic antibiotic treatments of 12-24 months required for these infections often lead to the development of antibiotic resistance. Due to the lack of effective treatment options, current cure rates for NTM-PD are as low as 30-50%.2 Particularly vulnerable to NTM-PD are people who suffer from structural airway diseases such as cystic fibrosis, COPD and bronchiectasis. BioVersys’ NTM program is derived from the company’s proprietary Ansamycin Chemistry platform. The BioVersys’ research team is developing a novel and highly potent broad-spectrum anti-NTM ansamycin, suitable for oral or inhalation therapy that is devoid of cross-resistance with other therapeutic classes. Since NTM-PD patients are often on multi-drug regimens, the company focuses on developing molecules that do not show any significant potential for drug-drug interactions. Meindert H. Lamers, Associate Professor, Leiden University Medical Center & RespiriNTM Project Coordinator: "Working together with BioVersys on the RespiriNTM project is a unique opportunity. Their powerful ansamycin class of inhibitors have the potential to provide an effective and highly needed treatment option for NTM infections, which fits perfectly with the aims of the RespiriNTM project. BioVersys’ strong drive to deliver a novel NTM antibiotic has invigorated the RespiriNTM project. Our collaboration to date has been very stimulating and I am very much looking forward to deepening our collaboration with BioVersys over the coming years." Dr. Sergio Lociuro, Chief Scientific Officer of BioVersys: “Following on from the recent successes of TRIC-TB, we are very pleased to have the opportunity to join a second IMI2 JU funded programme, which is tackling another area of high unmet medical need. RespiriNTM is a strong consortium of many expert partners with valuable experience in the field of antimicrobial resistance. We aim to develop our broad-spectrum NTM candidates into effective treatments against these difficult to treat pulmonary diseases to positively impact patients' lives.” Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) and Mycobacterium abscessus subspecies (MAB) cause several hundreds of thousands of infections worldwide each year. Unlike the well know related species M. tuberculosis, there are currently limited and poor treatment options to address these pathogens with significant levels of relapse and unacceptably high mortality rates, approaching 45%.3 Therefore, there is an urgent need for antibiotics that can treat the debilitating diseases that are caused by the Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM), M. avium complex and M. abscessus. The RespiriNTM project aims to develop novel antibiotics that target the RNA transcription machinery that is required for protein production in the cell. Through this work we aim to develop desperately needed antibiotics that work against M. avium and M. abscessus that form an increasing threat to global health. RespiriNTM is part of the IMI AMR Accelerator Programme. Non-tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) are ubiquitous environmental bacteria whose common clinical manifestation is pulmonary disease (NTM-PD) caused most frequently by Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) and Mycobacterium abscessus subspecies (MAB).4 NTM-PD affects approximately 250,000 people per year, predominantly in North America and Asia.4 Treatment of NTM infections is challenging due to variable intrinsic bacterial susceptibility, acquired resistance to commonly used antimicrobial agents, length of therapy (at least 12 months) and adverse effects associated with current treatment options. Macrolide-based, triple drug regimens, plus aminoglycosides for chronic/relapsing infections5 are considered only moderately effective for treating MAC, whereas no therapy of predictable efficacy exists for the treatment of M. abscessus, a pathogen associated with up to 50% mortality.6 People with predisposed conditions, including cystic fibrosis (CF), other lung diseases and immune-compromised patients are more easily colonised. Alarmingly, the incidence of NTM infections among people living with CF has increased from 3.3% to 22.6%, with MAB becoming a very prominent pathogen.7 Statements or views expressed in this release are of those of the respective organizations or persons and the IMI2 JU is not responsible for any use of the information contained herein. The RespiriNTM project has received funding from the Innovative Health Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 853932. This Joined Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA. The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) IMI is a partnership between the European Union and the European pharmaceutical industry, represented by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA). It was set up to improve health by speeding up the development of, and patient access to, the next generation of medicines, particularly in areas where there is an unmet medical or social need. It works by facilitating collaboration between the key players involved in healthcare research, including universities, pharmaceutical companies, other companies active in healthcare research, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), patient organisations, and medicines regulators. This approach has proven highly successful, and IMI projects are delivering exciting results that are helping to advance the development of urgently-needed new treatments in diverse areas. IMI projects are now managed by the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI), which builds on the successes of IMI and is a cross-sectoral public-private partnership involving a wider range of health industries. BioVersys AG is a multi-asset, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on identifying, developing and commercializing novel antibacterial products for serious life-threatening infections caused by multi-drug resistant (“MDR”) bacteria. Derived from the company’s two internal technology platforms (TRIC and Ansamycin Chemistry), candidates are designed and developed to overcome resistance mechanisms, block virulence production and directly affect the pathogenesis of harmful bacteria towards the identification of new treatment options in the antimicrobial and microbiome fields. This enables BioVersys to address the high unmet medical need for new treatments against life-threatening resistant bacterial infections and bacteria-exacerbated chronic inflammatory microbiome disorders. The company’s most advanced research and development programs address nosocomial infections of Acinetobacter baumannii (BV100, Phase 2), and tuberculosis (alpibectir, Phase 2a, in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and a consortium of the University of Lille, France). BioVersys is located in the biotech hub of Basel, Switzerland. 1 Lancet, Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019: a systematic analysis, VOLUME 399, ISSUE 10325, P629-655, FEBRUARY 12, 2022 2 Wang et al., 2022; Novosad et al., 2017; Lee et al., 2021; Mourad et al., 2021 3 The Impact of Nontuberculous Mycobacteria Species on Mortality in Patients with Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Lung Disease. Wang et al, 2022, Frontiers in Microbiology. doi:10.3389/fmicb.2022.909274 4 Hamed KA & G. Tillotson “A narrative review of nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease: microbiology, epidemiology, diagnosis, and management challenges” Ex. Rev. Resp. Med. (2023), 17 (11), 973 - 988 https://doi.org/10.1080/17476348.2023.2283135 5 Daley CL et al. “Treatment of nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease: an official ATS/ERS/ESCMID/IDSA clinical practice guideline” Eur. Resp. J. (2020), 56, 2000535; https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.00535-2020; Griffith DE et al. “An Official ATS/IDSA Statement: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention of Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Diseases” Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. (2007), 175, 367–416; https://doi.org/10.1164/rccm.200604-571ST 6 Jhun BW et al. “Prognostic factors associated with long-term mortality in 1445 patients with nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease: a 15-year follow-up study” Eur. Resp. J. (2020), 55, 1900798; https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.00798-2019 7 Degiacomi G. et al. “Mycobacterium abscessus, an Emerging and Worrisome Pathogen among Cystic Fibrosis Patients” Int. J. Mol. Sci. (2019), 20, 5868; doi: 10.3390/ijms20235868 The content above comes from the network. if any infringement, please contact us to modify.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Hospital quality reporting platform Pharos announced today the close of its oversubscribed $5M seed round led by Felicis with participation from General Catalyst, Moxxie and Y Combinator. Pharos will use the funds to grow its engineering team, allowing customers to report to new clinical quality registries and measure a wider range of process metrics. Founded in 2024 by a team of clinicians and AI researchers, Pharos automates clinical quality reporting for hospitals, enabling submission to state and national quality registries without manual abstraction. Additionally, by enabling automatic extraction of custom process metrics, Pharos helps quality teams identify the process failures that are contributing to patient harm, enabling action on issues like sepsis mortality, hospital-acquired infections, and pressure ulcers. "Today, hospitals spend thousands of hours manually abstracting metrics from unstructured medical records to fulfill registry reporting requirements and understand patient safety events," said Felix Brann, CEO and co-founder of Pharos. "This manual work is expensive, pulls clinical staff away from the front-line, and means that hospital teams get data long after patients are discharged. Pharos automates abstraction for quality reporting, letting hospitals report to new registries and track metrics that matter to them without adding to clinical reviewer backlogs. We give teams data in real-time, letting them take action on process gaps before they turn into patient harm." Brann was previously VP of Data Science at Vital. At Vital, he and Matthew Jones, CTO and co-founder, deployed live predictive AI into over 70 hospitals, integrating with every major electronic health record vendor. While trialing a sepsis model, they recognized the value AI could provide to hospital quality teams. Brann was previously VP of Quantitative Research at JP Morgan. He has published papers in major medical journals on sepsis prediction and medical record summarization using LLMs. Jones worked on the Orion Health EHR and grew M2X from inception to international expansion. The team is also joined by Dr. Alex Clarke, Head of Research, an MD with a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Imperial College London. He worked as a medical AI researcher at Meta and experienced the time-consuming medical abstraction process firsthand during his time as a resident doctor. "When we met the Pharos team and learned about their deep expertise in both healthcare and AI, we knew we had to work with them," said Ryan Isono, Partner at Felicis. "The mundane areas of healthcare administration make up nearly $1 trillion in spend annually. Pharos uses AI to automate the manual process of hospital quality reporting, which is dramatically underinvested in and can have a huge impact on not just savings but patient safety, too. The platform automates manual data abstraction from medical records, enabling hospitals to identify and resolve process failures in real time. With their experience deploying AI in 70+ hospitals and publishing relevant research, we couldn't imagine a better team to tackle this problem." Numerous studies have shown that access to data and adherence to processes can have significant impacts on patient safety. The American College of Surgeons estimates that 60% of current surgical site infections are preventable with good process, and the same is true for many other patient harm events. Pharos' mission is to help hospitals prevent this harm before it happens. You can learn more about the company and the technology at Media Contact Ellie Tippett, KCPR [email protected] About Pharos Pharos automates hospital quality reporting and helps staff identify the root causes of avoidable harm. Their AI automates chart abstraction for quality registries and process adherence measures, reducing staff burden and providing data instantly, rather than weeks after discharge. You can't improve what you can't measure. Pharos enables quality teams to see where and why safety issues are happening in real time, enabling them to take action on issues like sepsis mortality, hospital acquired infections and pressure ulcers. Pharos is a mission-driven team of clinicians and AI researchers from Meta, J.P. Morgan and Orion Health. They recently raised $5m in funding from Felicis, General Catalyst, Moxxie and Y Combinator to enable hospital quality teams with AI. About Felicis Founded in 2006, Felicis is a venture capital firm investing in companies reinventing core markets, as well as those creating frontier technologies. Felicis focuses on early-stage investments and currently manages over $3B in capital across 9 funds. The firm is an early backer of more than 45 companies valued at $1B+. More than 100 of its portfolio companies have been acquired or gone public, including Adyen (IPO), Credit Karma (acq by Intuit), Cruise (acq by General Motors), Fitbit (IPO), Guardant Health (IPO), Meraki (acq by Cisco), Ring (acq by Amazon), and Shopify (IPO). The firm is based in Menlo Park and San Francisco in California. Learn more at felicis.com. SOURCE Pharos WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM? 440k+ Newsrooms & Influencers 9k+ Digital Media Outlets 270k+ Journalists Opted In GET STARTED

Arjun Luthra, commercial director of BioInteractions, shares how Surface Active Therapeutics represent a leap in safeguarding medical devices. In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, the need for advanced protective measures for medical devices has never been more critical. Surface Active Therapeutics represent a groundbreaking leap in safeguarding these devices, ensuring they remain free from infections and complications throughout their lifespan. As healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) continue to pose significant challenges, innovative solutions like those developed by BioInteractions are pivotal. By integrating cutting-edge antimicrobial and antithrombogenic coatings, BioInteractions is leading the charge in enhancing patient safety, improving implant efficacy, and delivering superior therapeutic outcomes. Surface Active Therapeutics are advanced active treatments which do not need to release their ingredients that are applied directly to the surface of a medical device to help reduce the impact of clinical issues such as thrombosis, Fibrin Sheath Formation or infection. They provide highly effective and sustained protection therapeutic benefits to the patient. They use enhanced materials that form a continuous protective shield over the surface. This shield is made of a polymer matrix, which combines active and passive components to improve the biocompatibility of the implant, enhance the efficacy of the device and elevates the therapeutic benefits to the patient. Recent advancements in Surface Active Therapeutics involve applying effective localised therapeutics to various substrates and geometries, including catheters, drainage systems, ventricular devices, heart valves, and neurological stents. Advanced antimicrobial coatings like BioInteractions’ TridAnt create a continuous protective shield that combines active and passive components to protect against pathogens comprehensively. This matrix ensures a rapid contact-kill mechanism, broad-spectrum efficacy, continuous residual protection, and the ability to disrupt and prevent biofilm growth, effectively combating a wide range of infections for the patient's entire lifetime. These coatings offer the best protection, killing a broad spectrum of pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and spores. These include E. coli, MRSA, Influenza, Adenovirus, Norovirus, Clostridium difficile, and SARS-CoV-2. The technology is effective on various geometries and substrates, from soft materials like silicone and fabrics to hard materials like metals (stainless steel and nitinol) and polymers (polyamides, polycarbonates, and polyurethanes). TridAnt is a unique Surface Active Therapeutic that provides a localised effect, making it safe for use throughout the body. It is designed for lifetime efficacy on class 3 implants in chronic areas of the human body. Its polymeric matrix is biocompatible, targeting only microbes (prokaryotic cells) and remaining effective at the local surface to provide sustained efficacy for the patient. This targeted approach enhances safety by avoiding the systemic effects seen with other eluting coatings, which also reduce in efficacy over time. Consequently, TridAnt-coated medical devices maintain a highly effective, fast, durable, and localised protective shield against a broad spectrum of pathogens which disrupts and prevents biofilm throughout the device's lifetime. BioInteractions: Pioneering innovation BioInteractions is at the forefront of innovation in the development of biocompatible coatings for medical devices. Recent surgically implanted devices often require removal, re-insertion, or extensive drug regimens for the patient's lifetime. This has driven the need for coatings that meet both clinical and engineering requirements. Devices like total artificial hearts (TAHs), ventricular assist devices (VADs), vascular stents, and prosthetic mechanical heart valves assist vital organs but face the common challenge of lifetime hemocompatibility, specifically thrombosis. Surface Active Therapeutic technologies offer superior biocompatibility, lifetime antithrombogenicity, and significantly reduce the risk of fibrin sheath formation. BioInteractions developed Astute, an advanced antithrombogenic coating used on chronic, blood-contacting medical implants for over 25 years. Astute combines active and passive components to provide the highest performance and most durable antithrombogenic coating on the market. The active component prevents platelet activation and halts the blood cascade mechanism to inhibit thrombus formation, while the passive components prevent blood components from depositing on the device surface. This multi-faceted approach ensures superior hemocompatibility without compromising performance of the device whilst reducing the risk of clotting over the patient's lifetime. Additionally, the development of miniaturised and minimally invasive procedures presents challenges such as reducing tissue trauma through decreased friction during device insertion and removal. BioInteractions has addressed this challenge by developing Assist, a hydrophilic coating that reduces friction. It is uniquely flexible and durable which enables it to be applied to a wide range of medical devices. Assist fills in surface microstructures, improving the flow of liquids and reducing bodily component deposition and adhesion. This ensures devices remain functional and safe while implanted. Assist is instantly activated through wetting, eliminating the need for pre-soaking and saving preparation time, allowing for straightforward device deployment. Through these innovations, BioInteractions continues to lead the way in enhancing the safety and efficacy of medical devices, improving surgical outcomes, and providing better therapeutic results for patients. Current issues faced by medical product developers Medical product developers and manufacturers navigate a highly regulated environment. Under current European Union (EU) regulations, medical devices are tested by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) following a similar approval processes as pharmaceuticals. BioInteractions' Product Pathway Partnership team works closely with customers to navigate all aspects, including optimising the application process, fixture design, tooling, coating performance testing, regulatory compliance, and providing coating services. This partnership aims to help customers get to market efficiently and effectively with the highest quality coated device. The expanded Product Pathway Partnership alongside BioInteractions' integrated service streamline the research and development of new innovative coating materials. With 30 years of expertise and novel analytical resources, BioInteractions creates optimal coatings for various devices. This service further leverages BioInteractions' experience and technology portfolio to develop bespoke coatings for unique clinical unmet needs that have never been seen before, providing revolutionary and state-of-the-art solutions for their partners. The future of Surface Active Therapeutics Surface Active Therapeutics promises to revolutionise medical device technology, making implants safer, improving medical implant performance, and enhancing patient safety. Advanced antimicrobial and antithrombogenic coatings, such as TridAnt and Astute, will play a pivotal role. The TridAnt coating provides quick and sustained, broad-spectrum protection against pathogens, ensuring enhanced cleanliness and reducing post-surgical infections, leading to quicker recoveries and fewer complications. Astute combines active and passive antithrombogenic protection which prevents platelet activation and fibrin sheath formation, addressing significant risks associated with blood-contacting implants. This innovation will ensure lifetime antithrombogenicity, enhancing the safety and functionality of devices like heart valves and stents, minimising the need for additional surgeries and long-term medication. Personalised, biocompatible coatings tailored to individual patient needs will further improve outcomes by ensuring optimal performance and minimal adverse reactions. Patients will benefit from improved implant longevity, better therapeutic results, and enhanced quality of life.