BRÉHAN, France–(BUSINESS WIRE)–OLGRAM, a biotechnology company developing marine molecules for the prevention and control of bacterial infections, announces a €1.5m seed round to accelerate the development of first in class anti-infectious molecules capable of eliminating the bacteria responsible for chronic relapses. To do so, Olgram is characterizing, modifying and optimizing peptides and a marine molecule, MSP (Marine Sulfated Polysaccharide).
Persister cells are a subpopulation of temporarily dormant bacteria, responsible for infectious relapses and recently associated with chronic infection and treatment failure. Furthermore, this persistence is associated with antibiotic resistance, which has become a global public health problem, threatening our ability to treat common infectious diseases with the number of deaths worldwide potentially reaching 10 million per year by 2050. It is now estimated that 700,000 people die every year from infections with germs resistant to antimicrobial treatment (LEEM).
OLGRAM has an original positioning to address this critical need by developing new products that will target, for the first time, dormant bacteria (responsible for infectious relapses) with a new class of anti-infectious.
“We are delighted with this seed financing, which will allow us to accelerate the developments of our two flagship programs in the prevention and control of bacterial infections. We would like to thank the Business Angels, Bpifrance and the Brittany region for their support and confidence. Our ultimate goal is to target all chronic infectious pathologies requiring the elimination of dormant bacteria”, says Pierre Rocheteau, CEO, OLGRAM.
OLGRAM will first focus its efforts on cystic fibrosis, an orphan disease in which 35% of patients suffer from chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections in adulthood (a pathogenic bacterium) leading to their premature death. There are 56,000 patients in Europe and the USA1. In a second phase, OLGRAM will target nosocomial infections in immunocompromised patients after head trauma, i.e. 750,000 patients in Europe and the USA2.
Founded in 2019 and based in Bréhan (56), OLGRAM is a biotechnology company developing marine molecules for the prevention and control of chronic bacterial infections. The company has 2 product candidates targeting infections.
1 Annual Data Report of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Patient Registry, Bethesda, MD
2 https://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/pubs/tbi_report_to_congress.html
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