Biopharmaceutical company NImmune Biopharma has signed a new research collaboration with Virginia, US-based BioTherapeutics to advance the development of next-generation precision medicines for inflammation and immunology.
BioTherapeutics is a clinical-stage biotech firm that uses computational modelling alongside translational and clinical experimentation to expedite novel product development.
This partnership enhances NImmune’s precision immunology capabilities by granting access to BioTherapeutics’ preclinical services, regulatory expertise, and advanced product testing resources.
NImmune will use these capabilities to fast track the biomarker-driven development of its LANCL immunoregulatory drug pipeline. This includes mechanism of action validation studies and the development of both animal and computational models for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
Additionally, NImmune will benefit from BioTherapeutics’ proprietary animal models of disease, such as its pig models of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and PK/PD analysis capabilities and regulatory support.
BioTherapeutics chief scientific officer Raquel Hontecillas said: “We are excited to collaborate across teams in support of the development of much-needed therapeutics by providing our highly sophisticated computational and preclinical services, including our proprietary efficacy animal models of autoimmune and inflammatory disease.
“The unique drug development ecosystem created here in Blacksburg enables and equips our organisations to develop safer and more effective therapeutics at an increasingly efficient and accelerated pace.”
NImmune’s collaboration with BioTherapeutics follows its ongoing research and development (R&D) partnership with NIMML Institute, signed in May last year.
Both partnerships are expected to form a scientific innovation ecosystem that supports transdisciplinary teams throughout all stages of development.
This ecosystem, which also includes NIMML Institute’s TITAN-X precision medicine platform, has already shown positive results. It has achieved clinical and commercial milestones with NX-13, being developed for ulcerative colitis (UC) patients.
NX-13 was subsequently acquired by AbbVie through the acquisition of Landos Biopharma in March 2024.
NImmune Biopharma founder and CEO Josep Bassaganya-Riera said: “The collaboration with BioTherapeutics is a crucial extension of NImmune’s innovative R&D ecosystem that is enabling our team to create safer and more effective immunoregulatory therapeutics that address the unmet clinical needs of patients with inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.”
NImmune’s lead product candidate, omilancor, is a Phase 3 therapeutic targeting LANCL2 for UC and Crohn’s disease. Its Phase 2 proof-of-concept data was found to be positive.
