A new University of Alabama at Birmingham startup company is working to treat Crohn’s disease earlier.
ImmPrev Bio Inc. is developing a new diagnostic tool and early-stage treatment for the condition, which is a type of inflammatory bowel disease. The new therapies are based on research conducted in the lab of Dr. Charles Elson, professor of medicine in UAB’s Immunology program in the Heersink School of Medicine.
The therapies focus on the discovery that more than half of Crohn’s disease sufferers have immune responses to a particular subset of gut bacteria. Patients with a high immune response to this subset of bacterial flagellin antigens, which help with bacterial motility, are likely to experience more Crohn’s complications.
Based on this discovery, ImmPrev is developing a concomitant metabolic checkpoint inhibition therapy for Crohn’s disease. ImmPrev will first target patients in surgically or medically induced remission from Crohn’s disease as well as patients with new-onset Crohn’s who demonstrate a high anti-flagellin response.
Elson hopes, according to a news release, that this approach will lead to a platform for treating other immune-mediated diseases, in addition to Crohn’s.
“We believe that our novel early-stage treatment model has the potential to enable better outcomes for Crohn’s patients who can now be identified earlier and tracked and treated more effectively,” Elson said in a statement. “We look forward to advancing this promising therapy for the patients who need it.”
First Avenue Ventures Life Science Fund I, a fund with a strategic focus on Birmingham-based early-stage investment opportunities in the life sciences, recently led an investment round of an undisclosed amount into ImmPrev. The fund also aims to support business development and commercialization efforts.
