Destiny Pharma and US Department of Veterans Affairs team up to fight Clostridioides difficile infections

Destiny Pharma plc (AIM: DEST), a clinical stage innovative biotechnology company for the development of novel medicines to prevent life threatening infections, has just announced it will join forces with the US Department of Veterans Affairs through a Cooperative R&D agreement to support studies to further investigate NTCD-M3, a novel microbiome therapeutic to reduce the recurrence of Clostridioides difficile infections (CDI) in the gut.

For this project, Destiny Pharma will enter into a collaboration with Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital in Hines, Illinois, making use of their CDI research expertise to complete new preclinical studies that could support the administration of NTCD-M3 to a broader CDI patient population, therefore strengthening the market opportunity. The research project is planned to complete in Q4 2021. Financial terms are not disclosed.

The team will be led by Stuart Johnson, MD Professor of Medicine, Loyola Stritch School of Medicine, to perform further studies of NTCD-M3 at the Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital, which has a long standing recognition for its advanced research into the diagnosis, epidemiology, prevention and treatment of CDI.

Prof. Johnson says: “The potential for prevention of CDI with this non-toxigenic strain of C. difficile has been well-established. However, the mechanism of this protective effect has not been fully established. We are poised to conduct experiments that will help delineate the factors whereby NTCD-M3 prevents infection with toxigenic strains of this ubiquitous pathogen.”

In the United States, CDI is the top cause of hospital acquired infection and current treatments lead to significant recurrence. Approximately 500,000 cases of CDI each year are documented in the US. A large number of these initial cases then recur, causing 29,000 deaths per annum. NTCD-M3 could potentially rise to become the leading treatment for CDI prevention, as its Phase 2 data demonstrated a class leading 5% rate of recurrence, compared to 30% with placebo.