A SMALL DOSE

SGS enrols fi rst patient into Covid-19 trial

SGS has enrolled the fi rst patient into its clinical trial designed to examine the safety, tolerability and effi cacy of a potential drug candidate for people suff ering with Covid-19 related respiratory failure.

The testing laboratory was selected by French biotech Biophytis to conduct a clinical trial into the drug candidate Sarconeos (BIO101).

The trial will recruit around 50 patients who have tested positive for Covid-19, as well as having developed severe respiratory symptoms in the previous seven days. They must have obvious Covid-19 symptoms – e.g. pneumonia and oxygen distress – but cannot have been reliant on high-fl ow oxygen use or assisted ventilation during the previous 28- days. Steven Thys, SGS’ director of Global Clinical Operations said: “As the whole world faces up to the challenge of fi nding eff ective treatments for Covid-19 we are pleased to announce the fi rst patient has been successfully enrolled into the COVA Study. In the coming weeks, we may see more patients entering the study as more sites from diff erent countries will join the study.”

“Biophytis’ decision to choose SGS as its partner in the COVA Study is testament to our considerable expertise as a contract research organisation with profi ciency in the fi eld of infectious diseases. Together, we have worked intensively to set up this study in a remarkably effi cient timeframe.”

Morphine capsules could give sense of fr eedom to chronic breathlessness patients

Low-dose, extended release morphine capsules may be able to help people with chronic breathlessness get back in the driver’s seat, according to new research from Flinders University.

Australia has become the fi rst country in the world to approve regular, low-dose, sustained-release morphine capsules for the treatment of chronic breathlessness. A team at Flinders University connected to the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSC) interviewed chronic breathlessness patients and their caregivers to learn what activities they could pursue if their condition was better controlled. A paper released by the researchers supports the use of regular, low-dose, sustainedrelease morphine to help people with chronic breathlessness perform tasks such as driving. The research found that the introduction of the capsules had no self-reported impact on driving. However, the team states that further work in regard to safety is still being conducted.

The research could benefi t the 300,000 people across Australia who suff er from the condition – especially the 75,000 who are housebound and limited in their daily activities.

“Driving is a particularly valued part of most people’s lives and helps to maintain a sense of normality and independence when there are lots of losses as people experience a life-limiting illness,” says professor David Currow, who leads PaCCSC.

“Any therapy that could reduce the sensation of chronic breathlessness safely is benefi cial in optimising such things as driving and will be very benefi cial to these patients.”

“As the population ages, more people will experience chronic breathlessness as a result of emphysema, heart failure and cancer. Finding ways to reduce breathlessness will help to reduce suff ering across our community,” he says.

NORTH EAST BIOTECH AWARDED FUNDING FOR CELL TRANSPORT PROJECT

North East-based biotechnology company Atelerix has been awarded funding to develop room temperature solutions for shipping therapeutic cells.

The company was awarded funding under the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) Accelerator Programme from Innovate UK. Atelerix will put the funding towards its “BloodReady Project”, which is exploring scalable methods of cell preservation, transport and re-presentation for patient administration to off er cell therapy developers and manufacturers fl exibility in workfl ows and remove the need for expedited shipments of frozen packages. Living therapies are short-lived outside of their natural environments and whilst they can be frozen for storage, this can reduce the viability and potency of the cells when thawed or injected into the patients. More so, those that cannot be frozen often require complicated and expensive logistics to ensure their delivery to the hospital.

Atelerix has developed a method that encapsulates cells in alginate gel for storing and transporting cells at room temperature. The company hopes this can help preserve and extend their functional viability and potency. The company has worked on small-scale research projects that have shown the technology to be eff ective with a variety of cell types. Atelerix is now looking to scale these methods to enable larger volumes of cells to be safely transported while continuing to preserve their viability.

Dr Mick McLean, CEO, Atelerix, said: “Cellular therapies off er the possibility of treatments for diseases and conditions that cannot be approached by conventional drugs. New capabilities enabling storage and transport of therapeutic cells are vital if these life-saving treatments are to be made widely available to many more patients.”

We believe our innovative human cell preservation technology could be paradigm changing for cold supply logistics, and we are proud to have it recognised by such a highly respected grant funding body.”

Liquid biopsy company raises fu nds for cancer detection technology

Liquid biopsy company Mursla has raised over £400,000 to help it fi nalise technology that could detect cancer signatures in a much less invasive way for patients.

The funding will be put towards the company’s ExoPheno platform, which is being developed to detect cancer signatures in plasma from solid tumours via exosomes. Exosomes are vesicles naturally released by all cells, and which usually carry biologically active molecules that can deliver their messages to local or distant targets.

Liquid biopsies for cancer look at the nucleic acids or proteins circulating in the blood to determine if a patient has cancer. They are much less invasive than traditional biopsies which require local anaesthesia, causing discomfort to the patient.

Pierre Arsène, founder & CEO, Mursla commented: “The additional funding is a mark of confi dence in our strategy from both the UK government and our existing investors in this currently challenging environment. It has allowed us to make up for lost time during lockdown and expedited our move to fully equipped lab space at Cambridge Science Park, which has been an extremely positive step forward.

“Our next goal is to fi nd VC partners to help us scale our assays and validate our own exosome-based biomarker panel for liver cancer detection.”