BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alivio Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing therapies to treat inflammatory disorders via targeted disease immunomodulation and an affiliate of PureTech Health plc (LSE: PRTC), today announced that Nature Communications has published results from a preclinical study demonstrating that an immunomodulatory drug, administered locally using Alivio’s inflammation-responsive technology, substantially reduced measures of arthritis disease activity. These findings further support Alivio’s therapeutics platform and provide proof-of-concept for the potential application of the technology in inflammatory arthritis. Alivio has an exclusive license to the underlying proprietary platform technology from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The study demonstrated that an immunomodulatory agent, when combined with the Alivio technology, was released at the site of inflammation based on the degree of inflammation in the joints during arthritis flares. By the last day of the study (day 14), the Alivio technology had reduced nearly all of the inflammation in the affected tissue, with a 5.7-fold improvement in the clinical score vs control, as compared to only 1.4-fold for the free drug. The Alivio technology is designed to modulate the immune system locally in diseased tissue in a targeted manner by releasing greater amounts of therapeutics proportional to the severity of inflammation. In diseased joints, the Alivio technology prevents the rapid clearance commonly seen with conventional drugs introduced to the intra-articular space.
“The data show that the material responds dynamically to inflammatory flare severity. This new approach achieved therapeutic efficacy without side effects and has the potential to reduce the need for frequent dosing across multiple inflammatory disorders, as demonstrated by our previously published data,” said Alivio Co-founder Jeff Karp, PhD, Principal Investigator at BWH and a professor at HMS; Principal faculty at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute; and affiliate faculty at Harvard-MIT’s Division of Health Sciences and Technology and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Alivio is applying its technology to administer therapeutics selectively to the sites of inflammation across a variety of diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis and pain. In July 2017, Alivio presented data showing durable pain control with its technology in a preclinical Interstitial Cystitis/Bladder Pain Syndrome (IC/BPS) model that lasted at least 12 times longer than lidocaine at a comparable dose (ALV-107 16 mg/kg, conventional lidocaine 16 mg/kg).
About Alivio
Alivio Therapeutics, an affiliate of PureTech
Health (PRTC.L), is pioneering targeted disease immunomodulation as a
novel strategy to treat a range of chronic and acute inflammatory
disorders. Targeted disease immunomodulation involves tuning the immune
system exclusively at the site of disease in the body, with minimal
impact on the rest of the immune system. This long sought-after approach
has potential to treat a range of chronic and acute inflammatory
disorders including ones that would otherwise be difficult to treat.
Alivio’s proprietary Inflammation-Targeted Technology, based on the
research of Dr. Karp and Dr. Robert Langer, David H. Koch Institute
Professor at MIT, is the first technology to reproducibly show the
ability to target immunomodulatory compounds to inflamed tissue, which
can lead to dramatic improvements in treatment efficacy with major
reductions in systemic effects. The platform has been validated in
multiple labs and in eight different animal models of inflammation where
the inflammation occurred in different parts of the body (e.g., the GI
system, the bladder, joints, skin, etc.). The technology could
potentially be used with a variety of medications (e.g., small
molecules, peptides, proteins and nucleic acids) to address the dozens
of conditions where inflammation is a central part of the underlying
disease pathology, but where targeted and effective treatment options
are lacking.
Alivio is developing its proprietary technology in collaboration with several of the world’s leading experts in biomaterials and immunology. Expert advisors include: Jeff Karp, PhD, Professor of Medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Alivio co-founder; Robert Langer, ScD, Co-Alivio Founder and Non-Executive Director at PureTech Health and David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT; Michael B. Brenner, MD, Chief of the Division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy at BWH; Ulrich H. von Andrian, MD, PhD, Mallinckrodt Professor of Immunopathology at Harvard Medical School; and Ralph Weissleder, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Systems Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
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