Background

Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, are common, debilitating, and poorly treated conditions, affecting around eight million people worldwide. Current therapeutics include immunosuppressants and biologics that are often administered systemically. More than one-third of patients require surgical colectomy. These treatment options may reduce symptoms temporarily but even in the state of clinical remission, patients still have disease activity (e.g., inflammation) leading to relapse after a while. Complete remission happens when there are no symptoms and no disease activity in endoscopy or biopsy. Recently, it has been revealed that healing of the mucosal layer of digestive tracts can lead to longer and more permanent therapeutic outcomes. However, getting to that point is still a challenge. For instance, it is difficult to maintain a steady amount of drug at the site of disease, due to the constant flow of material through the gut. Therefore, new tools should be developed to address current limitations.

Technology Overview

Northeastern spinout, Tantu Therapeutics, has invented an oral live biotherapeutic patch for the treatment of wounds in the gut. The patch consists of engineered bacteria that secret therapeutic proteins with anti-inflammatory properties directly into the diseased sites. The presence of bacteria as well as secreted proteins improve gut barrier function and leads to faster mucosal healing. This patch platform can be utilized to apply partners’ drugs such as biologics (e.g., anti-TNFs, anti-interleukins, anti-integrins) into lesions for greater efficacy with fewer systemic side effects. The bacterial platform has a complete safety profile since it is made of an engineered strain of non-pathogenic E. coli. Bacteria multiply inside the gut, maintaining a relatively steady concentration over time, while secreting therapeutics directly at the site of disease. This strain of bacteria is engineered in a way to remain stable in the absence of antibiotic selection, which facilitates its use in vivo, and contributes to better performance as living gut therapeutics.

Benefits

No need for systemic delivery (oral delivery)
High safety profile
Fast and efficient design of engineered strain of bacteria
Complete remission of disease symptoms
Fewer systemic side effects compared to other biologics
Marinating a steady amount of drug in the site of disease
Simultaneous delivery of other biotherapeutics

Applications

Mucosal healing in IBD diseases

Opportunity

Biopharma partnership
Applying for grant funding

Synthetic Biology-Based Live Biotherapeutics for the Gut

IP Status

Seeking