Enterome, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, on Tuesday, announced that it has signed a strategic R&D collaboration and license agreement with Nestlé Health Science targeting food allergies and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
According to the companies, the goal of this partnership is to successfully develop and commercialise Enterome’s lead EndoMimics pipeline candidate EB1010. “EB1010 is a potent local inducer of IL-10 designed to provide improved therapeutic outcomes for patients with food allergies and IBD. EB1010, which is due to enter clinical trials in 2023, was discovered using Enterome’s novel bacterial Mimicry drug discovery platform. The same platform will also be used to identify and develop new EndoMimics as potential novel therapies for inflammation associated with food allergies; identify and create a pipeline of novel AllerMimics (allergen immunotherapies for food allergies) using Enterome’s Mimicry platform with an initial focus on peanut allergens as the basis for a novel class of immunotherapies that aims to suppress allergic reactions,” they stated.
Moreover, Enterome will receive €40 million upfront in cash and in equity from Nestlé Health Science and is also eligible to receive clinical and sales milestone payments for each licensed therapeutic candidate plus royalties on net sales, as per the agreement. Enterome will be responsible for leading drug discovery activities and bear related costs up to the investigational new drug (IND) application, the company stated.
“We will generate new AllerMimics candidates using our highly productive Mimicry drug discovery platform, which has already allowed us to discover multiple first-in-class small protein and peptide drug candidates in a broad range of therapeutic areas. AllerMimics are a truly novel class of specific antigens produced by the microbiome that are similar to food allergens, and work by helping the body’s immune system tolerize to these specific allergens. The collaboration will also allow us to progress the clinical development of EB1010, the first candidate originating from our EndoMimics pipeline. We believe that EB1010, administered orally as a pill, has the potential to prevent or diminish the intensity of allergic reactions in the gut. EB1010, which will also be evaluated in inflammatory bowel disease, will be applicable to many different types of food allergies, potentially in combination with selected AllerMimics,” said Dr. Christophe Bonny, chief scientific officer of Enterome.
“Approximately 220 million people around the world live with food allergies, while seven million live with inflammatory bowel disease. Through this collaboration, we are aiming to develop novel therapies for these two disease areas with high unmet medical need. We are excited about the opportunity to partner with Enterome on their unique microbiome drug discovery platform striving to develop first-in-class, high-quality treatment solutions that will help patients to live a healthier life,” Hans-Juergen Woerle, chief scientific and medical officer of Nestlé Health Science said in a statement.
“We are thrilled to sign this R&D agreement to develop a new pipeline of novel AllerMimics candidates as well as further develop and commercialize EB1010, our lead EndoMimics candidate, with Nestlé Health Science, a world leader in food allergies. The signing of this collaboration further highlights both the potential and growing interest in our Mimicry platform as a source of novel immunotherapies. This milestone is all the more exciting following recent clinical and immunological validation of the mode of action of EO2401, our first-in-class off-the-shelf OncoMimics immunotherapy for Glioblastoma and Adrenal carcinoma,” said Pierre Belichard, CEO of Enterome.
