TIDMPRTC
PureTech Health PLC
10 May 2016
PureTech Launches "Alivio Therapeutics" and Advances Novel
Approach for Treating Inflammatory Disease
Proprietary technology licensed from MIT and Brigham and Women's
Hospital is a platform to enable new treatments
Boston, Massachusetts, May 10, 2016 - PureTech Health plc
("PureTech," LSE: PRTC), a cross-disciplinary healthcare company
tackling fundamental healthcare needs, today announces the launch
of Alivio Therapeutics, which is developing a novel technology for
the targeted treatment of inflammatory disorders. The technology is
based on an innovative hydrogel material that is designed to adhere
to and deliver drugs to inflamed tissue based on the degree of
inflammation (e.g., more drug is released at site with greater
inflammation). This approach may help overcome major technical
challenges in the field, enabling new therapies that have the
potential to address multiple acute and chronic inflammatory
disorders. The technology was jointly developed by Jeff Karp,
Ph.D., Alivio co-founder and Associate Professor at Brigham and
Women's Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School and Alivio
co-founder and PureTech Health Non-Executive Director and
Scientific Advisory Board member, Robert Langer, Sc.D., David H.
Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT).
"There are dozens of diseases where inflammation plays a central
role, and patients and their doctors are looking for better,
longer-lasting treatments that offer relief," said Michael B.
Brenner, M.D., Alivio Scientific Advisory Board Member and Chief of
the Division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy, BWH. "We are
hopeful that the development of new technologies for delivering and
sustaining treatment to inflamed tissue will allow us to manage
chronic and acute inflammation with more precision and
control."
Current therapeutic options, such as systemic steroids and
immunosuppression, can fail to adequately control disease and may
have significant side effects. Furthermore, targeting newly
discovered mechanisms of inflammation has historically been
difficult due to off-target effects and toxicity. Alivio seeks to
overcome these limitations through a novel "smart adhere and
release" drug delivery system. This proprietary technology is
designed to adhere to inflamed tissue and deliver anti-inflammatory
medication based on the levels of inflammation in that tissue. This
has the potential to maximise treatment efficacy while minimising
the risks associated with drug exposure to healthy tissues and may
enable new, disease-modifying drugs. The technology has been tested
in multiple animal models and published in top peer-reviewed
journals, including twice in the American Association for the
Advancement of Science's Journal, Science Translational Medicine.
The technology is versatile and is designed to accommodate payloads
including small molecules and biologics, and has been the subject
of multiple patent filings.
"What differentiates this technology is its potential to safely
adhere to inflamed tissue while controlling drug release based on
the amount of inflammation," said Dr. Robert Langer. "These unique
properties hold promise to change the way inflammatory disease is
treated in a variety of indications."
Alivio was co-founded by PureTech Health and a group of the
world's leading experts in biomaterials and immunology. The
company's founding team and advisors include:
-- Jeff Karp, Ph.D. - Alivio Co-Founder and Associate Professor
at BWH, Harvard Medical School; Principal Faculty at the Harvard
Stem Cell Institute; affiliate faculty at the Broad Institute and
at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology;
Principal Investigator Karp Lab; published 100 peer-reviewed
papers; has 65 issued or pending patents; recognised by The Boston
Business Journal as a Champion in Healthcare Innovation and by
MIT's Technology Review Magazine (TR35) as one of the top
innovators in the world.
-- Robert Langer, Sc.D. - Alivio Co-Founder and Member of the
Alivio Board of Directors and Co-Founder and Non-Executive Director
at PureTech Health; member of PureTech's Scientific Advisory Board;
David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT; previously served as a
member and Chair of the United States (U.S.) Food and Drug
Administration's SCIENCE Board; has over 1,100 patents worldwide
that have been licensed or sublicensed to over 300 pharmaceutical,
chemical, biotechnology and medical device companies and over 1,350
publications in peer-reviewed journals.
-- Michael B. Brenner, M.D. - Alivio Scientific Advisory Board
Member and Theodore B. Bayles Professor of Medicine at Harvard
Medical School; Chief of the Division of Rheumatology, Immunology
and Allergy at BWH; made seminal discoveries in the field of
antigen presentation and elucidated key mechanisms of disease in
arthritis; was the scientific co-founder of Adheron Therapeutics
(acquired by Roche); was elected member of the U.S. National
Academy of Science; published more than 200 peer-reviewed
papers.
-- Ivana Magovcevic-Liebisch, Ph.D., J.D. - Director, Alivio
Board of Directors and Senior Vice President and Head of Global
Business Development at Teva Pharmaceuticals; responsible for the
execution of transactions identified by Teva's Research and
Development, Global Franchises and U.S. Specialty teams, including
the licensing of commercial products, drug candidates and
technologies; formerly Executive Vice President and Chief Operating
Offer of Dyax Corporation which was acquired by Shire
Pharmaceuticals for $5.9 billion; formerly Director of Intellectual
Property and Patent Counsel for Transkaryotic Therapies, Inc.;
Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation Board member.
-- Ulrich H. von Andrian, M.D., Ph.D. - Alivio Scientific
Advisory Board Member and Mallinckrodt Professor of Immunopathology
at Harvard Medical School; pioneered microscopy techniques that
shaped our current understanding of how immune cells target and
adhere to inflamed tissue; has published more than 200
peer-reviewed papers.
-- Ralph Weissleder, M.D., Ph.D. - Alivio Scientific Advisory
Board Member and Thrall Professor of Radiology and Systems Biology
at Harvard Medical School; Director of the Center for Systems
Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital; pioneered the clinical
translation of various nanomaterials and imaging tools; has
published more than 800 peer-reviewed papers; winner of the J.
Taylor International Prize in Medicine; winner of the Society for
Molecular Imaging Lifetime Achievement Award; member of the U.S.
National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences and the German National Academy of Sciences
(Leopoldina).
"PureTech is excited to be advancing this important technology,
invented by Jeff Karp and Bob Langer, and to be working with our
extended team of experts to launch Alivio Therapeutics," said
Daphne Zohar, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PureTech
Health. "There is a tremendous unmet need in inflammatory disease,
so we look forward to progressing this platform, which has the
potential to deliver drugs to inflammation in a new and meaningful
way."
About Alivio
Alivio Therapeutics is developing a novel technology for the
targeted treatment of chronic and acute inflammatory disorders.
Alivio is advancing its proprietary hydrogel technology, which is
designed to adhere to inflamed tissue and delivers medication based
on the levels of inflammation, potentially enabling improved
properties while minimising exposure to healthy tissue and other
systemic side effects. Founded by PureTech Health along with
several of the world's leading experts in biomaterials and
immunology, Alivio seeks to provide a solution to the dozens of
conditions where inflammation is a central part of the underlying
disease pathology, but targeted and effective treatment options are
lacking.
PureTech Health plc (PRTC.L) owns approximately 92% of the
company on a diluted basis as of December 31, 2015. This
calculation includes issued and outstanding shares as well as
options to purchase shares and written commitments to issue shares
or options, but excludes unallocated shares authorised to be issued
pursuant to equity incentive plans.
About PureTech Health
PureTech Health (PureTech Health plc, PRTC.L) is a
cross-disciplinary healthcare company developing innovative
products that could improve the lives of billions of patients.
PureTech is focused on areas of growing scientific and technical
insights that it believes are at an important inflection point,
including the central nervous, gastro-intestinal and immune
systems, and the interactions and signaling between them. PureTech
has a pipeline of more than 30 programs and has approximately 20
clinical studies across its pipeline, targeting multi-billion
dollar market opportunities. PureTech's advanced programs include
five with human proof-of-concept and multiple with pivotal or
registration study readouts in the next two years. PureTech has
over 220 patents and patent applications. PureTech's leading team
and board, along with an advisory network of more than 60 expert
founder-scientists and advisors across multiple disciplines, gives
PureTech access to potentially ground-breaking science and
technological innovation. With healthcare undergoing major
transformation, PureTech believes it is well positioned to develop
and launch medicines for the 21st century. For more information,
visit www.puretechhealth.com and connect with us on Twitter.
Forward Looking Statement
This press release contains statements that are or may be
forward-looking statements, including statements that relate to the
company's future prospects, developments and strategies. The
forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and
are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could
cause actual results, performance and achievements to differ
materially from current expectations, including, but not limited
to, those risks and uncertainties described in the risk factors
included in the regulatory filings for PureTech Health plc. These
forward-looking statements are based on assumptions regarding the
present and future business strategies of the company and the
environment in which it will operate in the future. Each
forward-looking statement speaks only as at the date of this press
release. Except as required by law and regulatory requirements,
neither the company nor any other party intends to update or revise
these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise.
# # #
For further information please contact:
PureTech
Allison Mead, Associate Director,
Communications and Investor Relations +1 617 651 3156
FTI Consulting (Communications
adviser to PureTech) +44 (0)20 3727
Ben Atwell / Matthew Cole 1000
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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