Wound healing ILYA-style

Obiettivo

The objective of the project is to develop the EV100 drug candidate to heal chronic wounds in patients with diabetes in a better, faster, and cheaper manner than any method available today.
We have chosen to target wounds in patients with diabetes, due to a large unmet medical need in this group. Today, 18% of people with diabetes have a chronic wound which translates into at least 6 million people in Europe alone. One of the complications of diabetes, diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) often result in limb amputation. The mortality rate after an amputation is 30% within the first year, which is similar to several cancers. Even more alarming, treatment is today limited to mechanical debridement, use of different dressings, and a substantial overuse of antibiotics. Industrialized countries spend 2-4% of total healthcare budget on chronic wounds. The market for wound care is EUR 15 billion and the segment of DFUs is in the range of EUR 1.5 billion, with 11% CAGR 2011-2014.
We have designed and built genetically modified lactic acid bacteria that accelerate wound healing with a unique efficiency. Human therapeutic proteins endogenously involved in tissue regeneration are continuously delivered on site in wounds by the lactic acid bacteria that act like small local bioreactors. EV100 is one of the candidate drugs in our library using Ilya100TM technology and is Lactobacillus expressing the human chemokine CXCL12. The Lactobacillus are freeze-dried and revived with water just prior to topical administration. The innovation stems from world-leading medical research in immunophysiology and microbiology at Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
With EV100 chronic wounds could possibly be healed approx. 66% faster, implying annual cost savings of EUR 6 billion in the US and Europe and tackling all the personal and social difficulties associated with chronic wounds, increasing the quality of life of patients all around the world.