Month: April 2021

GSK-Backed Sitryx Launches With Six Immunometabolism Eggs In Its Basket

GlaxoSmithKline, SV Health Investors and Sofinnova are among the backers of a new Oxford-based biotech which has raised $30m in series A financing and boasts a strong line-up of academic founders. CEO Neil Weir outlines Sitryx’s raison d’etre.

View Article: https://hbw.pharmaintelligence.informa.com/SC123958/GSK-Backed-Sitryx-Launches-With-Six-Immunometabolism-Eggs-In-Its-Basket

Going with Your Gut Instinct

I’ve been interested in this field since before the term “microbiome” was coined. In the 1990s, I conducted research at Leiden University Medical Center on the role of microorganisms in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We were the first to take biopsies from the target tissues of inflamed joints of patients with RA and other forms of inflammatory joint disease, and analyze them using 16s PCR. We detected microbial DNA in different forms of arthritis and predicted that it would be derived from the gut.

Biocentury

An exodus of pharma R&D leaders to small biotechs and start-ups over the last year reflects a new phase in the ecosystem’s churn of talent.

Targeting Immuno-Inflammation: Where Industry and Academia Interface

Although inflammation is a necessary biological process in response to injury and disease, at abnormal levels it is also responsible for a significant annual health burden. Immune-mediated inflammatory disease is present at a prevalence of about 7% in the Western world and with an ever aging population this is set to rise. While treatments for some of the more common inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) do exist, there is still a large unmet patient need as many sufferers do not achieve remission of symptoms even when using currently available therapies. Immuno-inflammation is one of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)’s key therapeutic areas of interest. Helen Albert speaks to Paul-Peter Tak, Senior Vice President and Chief Immunology Officer at GSK, about his career and the work he is doing at GSK to encourage scientific innovation and target unhealthy inflammation in all its forms.

Innovation in Development

Just over 140 years ago, the world’s first industrial-sized R&D laboratory opened. As someone who’s devoted his working life to finding new R&D breakthroughs, I’m envious of the explosion of activity that made the lab’s owner, Thomas Edison, one of history’s most remarkable inventors. But it’s his process of innovation that inspires me, as much as his life-changing creations.

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Paul Peter Tak

© Paul Peter Tak.
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