The Institut Pasteur de Montevideo and the biotech startup Xeptiva Therapeutics LLC, co-founded by researchers from the Institute and focused on the development of therapeutic vaccines for the veterinary market, signed a licensing agreement on December 29 that will allow the company to work with the technology patented and generated at the Institute and transform it into a marketable product.
As a result of almost 10 years of research, the researchers Luis Barbeito, MD, Emiliano Trías, PhD, and Valentina Varela, MSc, together with the veterinarians Gabriel Semiglia and Andrea Filomeno, developed an innovative immunotherapy that can block specific factors that cause chronic pain, as a treatment for companion animals (dogs, cats and horses).
Currently there are very few effective therapies for this condition in animals and humans. This immunotherapy, a type of treatment that stimulates the body’s natural defenses, was conceived as a vaccine that helps the body respond to the inflammation that causes pain.
With a patentable technology, the scientists partnered with the bioentrepreneur Josefina Correa, MS, PMP, and the angel investor Santiago Flores, and co-founded the biotech start-up in 2021, which has begun local animal testing of the efficacy and safety of the therapy, always under the supervision of an animal ethics committee.
The work is mainly focused on diseases that affect dogs, cats and horses whose common denominator is chronic inflammation. These diseases include osteoarthritis in dogs and cats, which causes chronic pain and progressive, disabling motor impairment, and atopic dermatitis in dogs, a very difficult-to-treat skin inflammation that causes itching, skin lesions and a significant decrease in the quality of life of pets.
Xeptiva will now conduct controlled clinical studies in animals and recently entered into an agreement with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine to carry out new controlled trials in dogs affected by chronic pain. These trials will begin in March 2023.
Once this stage is complete, if the efficacy and safety of the product are confirmed, partners will be sought to bring the product to market, which includes registration, formal approval and scale production. It is estimated that the products could be on the market in two to three years.
Correa stressed that the company aims at the international market and that the technology has already drawn interest from leading international companies in the field. The characteristics of this development will also allow it to be a product of universal reach, with a reasonable cost for pet owners.
Xeptiva Therapeutics LLC is a clinical-stage biotech company dedicated to the development of immunotherapies to treat conditions associated with chronic neuroinflammation in companion animals. The company was created with the mission to improve companion animals’ healthspan (quality of life) and lifespan (years of life) by developing simple, affordable, disruptive and highly effective immunotherapies.
