Project description
Proprietary dressings for the treatment of chronic wounds
Treatment of non-healing chronic wounds represents an unmet clinical need with conventional wound dressings failing to protect against recurrent infections, leading to increased mortality. The rising incidence of diabetes and obesity alongside antibiotic resistance exacerbate the situation. The EU-funded WHILYAS-2 project proposes to address the insufficient treatment of chronic wounds through a proprietary technology that utilises chemokines as therapeutic agents through local administration from genetically modified lactic acid bacteria. For clinical proof of concept, partners will conduct a phase II clinical trial of their drug candidate ILP100 Topical in patients with diabetes.
Objective
ILYA PHARMA AB is a Swedish spin-out biotech company from Uppsala that develops next-generation biologics to treat wounds in skin and mucosa.
In the previous SME Instrument project, the Company reached the First in Human (FiH) Phase I clinical trial in the development of their technology platform (ILP) that utilizes chemokines as therapeutic agents through local administration from genetically modified lactic acid bacteria.
The WHILYAS-2 project addresses several critical problems and unmet medical needs related to the treatment of chronic wounds, both from patients and healthcare perspectives, namely the pandemic of obesity and diabetes (463 million people in 2019), an alarming pace of antibiotic resistance spreading (due to overuse of antibiotics), limited and insufficient treatment options (less than 25% of chronic wounds heal within 12 weeks), and vast and growing socio-economic burden (20 billion EUR per year in the US and Europe alone).
The technical, industrial, legal, and commercial feasibility of ILP100 Topical have all been confirmed over the course of our previous activities and developments.
In this project, Ilya Pharma intends to conduct exploratory clinical trials (Phase IIa) of their drug candidate, ILP100 Topical, in treatment of non-healing (chronic) wounds in populations with diabetes to achieve clinical Proof of Concept (PoC) in the relevant patient group. WHILYAS-2 will allow the Company to scale up and position it to be further investable for VCs and MedTech/Biopharma Companies or license ILP100 Topical to a partner capable of bringing it to the market through large-scale Phase IIb or pivotal (Phase III) clinical studies.
If these efforts are successful, ILP100 Topical is expected to be superior and best in class treatment for chronic wounds, offering ease of use, comparable to traditional wound dressings, >50% reduction of wound infections, significantly reduced 5-year mortality, as well as >50% decrease in treatment cost per wound.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug discovery
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic healthepidemiologypandemics
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineendocrinologydiabetes
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsantibiotics
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug resistanceantibiotic resistance
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinator
752 37 Uppsala
Sweden
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.