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November 30, 2024
November 25, 2024
With the rise of the pandemic, the majority of healthcare, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have shifted their focus in order to resolve the crisis. While a majority of them have gone back to their molecule libraries to identify potential vaccine candidates, very few candidates have gone back to the drawing board to scale their proprietary technologies to harness their capabilities to cure COVID-19.
FibroGenesis is one of the few players in the market that is trying to scale their fibroblast based PneumoBlast platform to cure acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), lung scarring and coagulopathy in COVID-19 patients.
The biggest challenge in treating a new infectious disease is the lack of understanding associated with the progression. Things have evolved rather quickly when it came down to identifying how the SARS-COV2 infection progresses. Albeit, a big part of the credit belongs to the researchers who are constantly injecting innovation to prepare us for our next big epidemic.
Virologists and public health systems have continuously trained themselves to ensure that whenever the moment strikes, we are in a better shape to handle the situation. Houston based, FibroGenesis developed an approach to strengthen our immunity while fighting ARDS, the most common cause of mortality amongst severe COVID-19 infections. Unique to this approach is that the treatment actually stimulates injured lung tissue to repair itself, thus reducing the long term effects of COVID-19 such as permanent loss of lung function.
In March 2020, the company filed the patent for leveraging human dermal fibroblasts to regenerate lung tissue. Pete O’Heeron, the CEO of FibroGenesis says, “Discovering that fibroblasts can potentially cure the leading cause of death from COVID-19, has encouraged us to expedite the clinical testing needed to validate their benefit.”
In July 2020, FibroGenesis reported significant improvement in lung inflammation post-administration of PneumoBlast in rat models resulting from im called cytokines. Reducing the inflammatory cytokines, i.e. interleukin-1 beta, interleukin-6, interleukin-8, interleukin-17, interleukin-18, and Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha, TNFa, PneumoBlast also increased the concentrations of anti-inflammatory cytokines, namely, interleukin-4, interleukin-10, interleukin-13 and interleukin-35, as well as regeneration-associated cytokines FGF-2 and HGF-1.
Tom Ichim, Ph.D., the Chief Scientific Officer of FibroGenesis commented, “Expanding our research continues to build a compelling scientific justification for use of fibroblasts in treatment of COVID-19 ARDS. PneumoBlast appears to offer new hope to patients suffering from COVID-19 associated lung disease.”
Ichim added, “COVID-19 represents a new clinical pathology which not only causes death through lung inflammation, but in some patients causes permanent lung injury through stimulation of scarring. The prospects that our cell therapy approach not only possesses therapeutic effects on animal models of the acute stage of COVID-19, but also benefits the long-term pathology, has our research team extremely excited.”
O’Heeron commented, “As the scientific and medical community is discovering more about the biological consequences of the COVID-19 infection, FibroGenesis is eager to contribute to the therapeutic cure options currently being created to fight this global war against an invisible enemy. While we are excited about potential vaccines in the pipeline, the fact remains that there are 3.8 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. and we do not know what the long-term outcomes for these patients will be. To our knowledge, we are the only cell therapy company which is creating a therapy to resolve the initial pathology of infection and also proactively tackling its long-term consequences.”
Ichim resonated with O’Heeron’s comments and further added “Currently one of the major obstacles to successful treatment of COVID-19 is the unusually high level of unregulated coagulation, which in many cases is not resolved by standard anticoagulants. The ability of PneumoBlast cells to reduce blood clotting potential in both monocytic and endothelial cells speaks volumes about the multifactorial mechanisms by which we believe our product will work on COVID-19.” Both O’Heeron and Ichim are serial entrepreneurs with a demonstrated history in handling medical technology, research and development alongside supporting clinical trials.
FibroGenesis, formerly called SpinalCyte was founded in 2008 to focus on tissue engineering. Originally developed, and FDA cleared, for degenerative disc disease (DDD), the company has adapted the technology to aim at treatment expansion and indication expansion. Their technology uses fibroblasts, an allogenic regenerative cell that is immune neutral. Thus, the quality of regenerated tissue is consistent in quality and a better fit than its popular and much elaborated cousin, stem cells.
Their pipeline is led by CybroCell which has shown tremendous promises in the treatment of numerous chronic indications, including Diabetes, Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Pain, Colitis and others. Talking about the driving factors behind their consistent growth, O’Heeron credits great science, strong intellectual property position, determination, great surgeon partners and being first out in an underserved marketplace.
For those who do not know, ARDS is the biggest cause leading to COVID-19 mortality and fatality. SARS-COV2 (like SARS-COV) binds with the epithelial cells of the nasal cavity and starts replication. The infection transcends down the respiratory tracts with ACE2 receptors. The infection results in filling the alveoli, tiny air sacs in the lungs with fluid which is primarily responsible for absorbing oxygen thus impeding the natural gas exchange in the lungs. As a result, the patient experiences breathlessness, and oxygen supply to the rest of the body declines. Slowly, the lung tissue begins scarring and ultimately the death of the patient. PneumoBlast reduces scarring in patients with ARDS and therefore keeps the blood oxygen level intact.
Based in Houston, Texas, FibroGenesis, is a regenerative medicine company developing an innovative solution for chronic disease treatment using human dermal fibroblasts. Currently, FibroGenesis holds 235+ U.S. and internationally issued patents/patents pending across a variety of clinical pathways, including Disc Degeneration, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, Cancer, Diabetes, Liver Failure, Colitis and Heart Failure. Funded entirely by angel investors, FibroGenesis represents the next generation of medical advancement in cell therapy.
Website: https://www.fibro-genesis.com/
Headquarters: Houston, Texas
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Email address: [email protected]
