BioVersys receives a grant of €7 million

1.6 million people died from TB in 2017 and it remains one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide and the leading cause from a single infectious agent - above HIV/AIDS. The objective of BioVersys’ TRIC-TB Project is to progress clinical candidates that potentiate the efficacy of and reverse the resistance to the anti-tubercular pro-drug Ethionamide (ETH). The World Health Organization considers ETH a crucial pillar of TB treatment, especially against multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant strains. TRIC-TB has the potential to deliver a novel, fast acting TB agent potentially replacing Isoniazid as first line TB therapy.

BioVersys has received EUR 6.92 Million funding for TRIC-TB from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 853800. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA. The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) represents the pharmaceutical industry operating in Europe.

The funds will be used for further preclinical through to first clinical development of candidate molecules from the TRIC-TB project which have been developed in a successful collaboration with GSK, the Institut Pasteur de Lille and University of Lille. TRIC-TB is one of BioVersys’ leading pipeline assets directed at tuberculosis (TB), based on BioVersys’ award winning Transcriptional Regulatory Inhibitory Compounds (TRICs) Platform which reaches a significant new milestone with the selection of two pre-clinical candidates and validation through the support of the IMI2 JU and the extension of the R&D collaboration with GSK. The funding provided by the IMI2 JU under the AntiMicrobial Resistance (AMR) Accelerator Program will allow for this unique Global Health project to continue its progress through IND enabling studies and into First in Human studies by early 2020.