Therapeutic areas

Although in the last 10 years new innovative medicines have found their way into the treatment of clinically relevant conditions, many patients remain waiting to find an effective treatment. TechnoPhage is committed to the improvement of the infection, neuroscience and ophthalmology therapeutic areas, through the development of solutions using different technological platforms.

Infection

The emergence of different species of pathogenic bacteria resistant to many currently available antimicrobial agents has become a critical problem in modern medicine, and the development of complementary antibacterial therapies has become one of the highest priorities in the scope of healthcare associated infections.

It has been well established that bacteriophage therapy is an innovative treatment for different types of infections, specifically the ones caused by multidrug resistant bacteria, for which many times there are no therapeutic options. Indeed, therapy using lytic bacteriophages presents itself has an efficient antimicrobial therapy approach in selected clinical environments due to its specificity and efficiency in lysing pathogenic bacteria.

The development of robust and well characterized bacteriophage cocktails for administration in different clinical indications has been one of the goals of the TechnoPhage bacteriophage platform (TP products).

So far, TechnoPhage has relied on this platform to answer the needs of the infection therapeutic area, showing three different products in the pipeline: TP-102 for chronic ulcers, TP-122 for respiratory infections, TP-164 for urinary tract infections.

Neuroscience

Neurodegenerative diseases exhibit a complex and multifactorial nature that affects millions of individuals worldwide, constituting a challenge for the R&D of new and efficient drugs, and resulting in a large unmet need. Therefore, it becomes urgent to develop innovative and effective treatments.

TechnoPhage has relied on two different technological platforms to answer the needs of the neuroscience therapeutic area: a biological platform for the development of recombinant single domain antibody fragments (TA products), and a drug repositioning platform using an in vivo model system for the screening of FDA approved small molecules (TZ products).

TA products are based on the discovery and development of recombinant single domain antibody fragments against specific targets focusing on neurodegenerative and ophthalmology due to the capacity these small domain antibodies have shown in translocating human barriers such as the blood brain barrier (BBB). TZ products have been created based on an innovative approach to drug repositioning using the zebrafish as an in vivo model system for the phenotypic screening ofmolecules already in the market or approved for Safety. Repositioning strategy has been shown to be a promising alternative to conventional R&D, which is time-consuming and has high associated costs and risks, due to unexpected adverse effects and, in many cases, efficacy below expectations.

These two technological platforms have allowed the development of different products to answer the needs of the neuroscience therapeutic area. Currently, two different products are included in the pipeline: TZ-161 for spinal cord injury and TA-191 for an undisclosed indication.

Ophthalmology

Although clinically relevant progress has been made over the past decade in the treatment of eye conditions, there is still a lot to be done in the scope of the development of innovative and non-invasive treatments for patients with macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, among others eye diseases.

Monoclonal antibodies have come to revolutionize modern medicine in several therapeutic areas including the treatment of several eye diseases. In fact, traditional antibodies are molecules with a big size and high molecular weight. Additionally, the local treatment of ophthalmologic diseases with antibodies has been done by intravitreal injections, such as the use of specific agents to treat macular degeneration disease.

The convenience of discovering new and safer effective antibodies, and a more practical administration route or delivery system remains an important issue.

TechnoPhage’s above described platform for the development of small domain antibodies allowed the development of one product that is currently included in the company’s pipeline and that is TA-182 for an undisclosed indication.