BiomX licenses with JSR Corporation for treating IBD

Microbiome comapany developing customized phage therapies , BiomX Ltd. declared that it has sought sub-license from JSR Corporation a set of bacterial targets for the development and commercialization of phage therapies that eradicate these targets, as a treatment for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The targets marked to be inflammatory and may pave way for the onset of inflammatory Bowel disease.

BiomX is advancing BX002, a phage composition customized to specifically target and eradicate these IBD associated pro-inflammatory gut bacteria. BiomX plans to file an investigational new drug (IND) application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2019. Existing medications offer only symptomatic relief to this chronic, lifelong condition.

Inflammatory bowel disease is a group of disorders that involve chronic inflammation of the digestive tract, which include Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. IBDs affect as many as 1.6 million Americans, most of whom are diagnosed before the age of 35

Jonathan Solomon, CEO of BiomX said “Under the terms of agreement with JSR, we have been developing BX002, our lead drug candidate for IBD, for over a year. This exclusive licensing agreement fortifies our position as a microbiome-targeting drug developer.”

The researchers further showed that a subset of these bacterial strains, and in particular certain antibiotic-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae strains, induce an inflammatory response in the guts of germ-free mice.