Project description
Novel Crohn’s disease treatment helps to achieve long-term remission
Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease affecting millions of people worldwide and impacting their quality of life. French company Exeliom Biosciences aims to develop a novel drug for CD patients, named EXL01, based on the unique commensal bacteria Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. In contrast to current CD treatments, EXL01 achieves long-term remission in mild-to-moderate cases without side effects. Exeliom Biosciences has built an operational team of scientific and business advisors. The company has established collaborations with key industrials partners, developed the manufacturing process and tested the drug in preclinical studies. The EU-funded EXL01 project will support the phase 2a clinical trial and scale-up of the manufacturing process.
Objective
Crohn's disease is a Chronnic Inflammatory Bowel disease affecting over 1.4 million people worldwide. It is the fourth chronic condition impacting the most severely patients’ quality of life, ahead of cancer, visual impairments, and chronic respiratory conditions. Crohn’s disease is an intestinal disorder causing chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. It is mainly diagnosed in young people, from 15 to 40 years old. Patients experience excruciating symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, joints pain and swelling. In some cases, it may even be mortal. Besides this tremendous health impacts, the disease is associated with over €30 billion of annual costs.
Exeliom Biosciences is an innovative French AME created in 2016 with a mission to bring a new life to Crohn’s Disease patients. The company is developing a game-changing drug, named EXL01, which relies on a unique commensal bacteria Faecalibacterium prausnitzi. Unlike current Crohn’s Disease treatments, EXL01 achieves long-term remission in mild-to-moderate Crohn’s disease patients without any side effect. It will decrease the number of existing treatments which present a very bad benefit/risk ratio and strong costs in mild-to-moderate patients. Therefore, besides its tremendous health impact, EXL01 will decrease by several million direct and direct costs related to Crohn’s Disease.
Exeliom Bioscience has built a team of 5 operational people, and board of 6 scientific and 5 business advisors. The company has also strong collaborations with key international centres and industrials. The company has its own manufacturing process to produce the drug substance and EXL01 has been tested in preclinical studies.
Thanks to the EIC Accelerator, Exeliom will reach phase 2a clinical trial and scale-up its manufacturing process. Eventually, EIC Accelerator would place Exeliom on a trajectory to become a global leader in the treatment of Crohn’s Disease.
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Funding Scheme
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinator
21000 Dijon
France
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.