Rise Therapeutics, LLC today announced that the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a three-year Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to fund the development of the novel engineered probiotic for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
This project builds on the research of co-collaborators Dr. Bikash Sahay and Dr. Ellen Zimmermann at The University of Florida.
“We are extremely grateful for this support as we advance our R-3750 program into clinic studies,” Dr. Gary Fanger, President and CEO of Rise Therapeutics said. “Inflammatory bowel disease is a chronic life-long affliction for patients that suffer from this devastating disease. The scientists and policymakers at NIDDK and across NIH know this well, and we are therefore heartened that our R-3750 program has such important support.”
IBD is a general term that refers primarily of two chronic inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). In general, inflammation of CD can affect any region of the GI tract, whereas UC primarily affects the colon. Complications of this disease often result in hospitalization at a rate of 8.2-17.1 per 100,000 persons with IBD annually. IBD is a life-long condition with significant morbidity and there is no cure. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), approximately 3.1 million adults in the U.S. suffer from IBD, which represents roughly 1.3% of the U.S. population. Based on direct costs, indirect costs, and decreased productivity, the estimated annual economic burden of IBD in the U.S. may be as high as $31 billion.
Rise Therapeutics has utilized its proprietary oral biologics delivery platform where we encapsulate protein-based, targeted biological therapy into probiotic carrier vehicles to design a highly innovative new drug, called R-3750, to treat IBD. R-3750 is a food-grade, probiotic strain expressing high-levels of SlpA from a genome-integrated expression operon. As an immunologically-directed probiotic medication, R-3750 is orally administered as a capsule, representing a novel breakthrough approach for the treatment of IBD.
Rise Therapeutics is an experienced oral therapeutics developer focused on launching promising products to the patients who need them the most. Rise Therapeutics has a robust oral therapeutics pipeline and is proud to partner with The University of Florida and the NIH on this exciting program.
About Rise Therapeutics, LLC
At the crossroads of the microbiome and immunology, Rise Therapeutics is developing immunologically therapies using a unique and proprietary oral delivery platform. Based in Rockville, Maryland, Rise leverages its target discovery expertise to understand microbiota gut biology as it relates to regulation of the immune system. Utilizing these biological discoveries to identify new immune regulatory pathways, Rise develops immune modulatory drugs for therapy of autoimmunity, inflammatory disease, cancer, and infectious disease. With its proprietary Tripartite X (TPX) platform, Rise delivers these first-in-class biological therapies orally. For more information about Rise Therapeutics, please visit www.risetherapeutics.com.