September 11, 2012, Updated September 6, 2012

Hebrew University of Jerusalem Prof. Saul Yedgar and his colleagues have created a synthetic, anti-infammatory and anti-allergic family of drugs to combat a variety of illnesses while avoiding detrimental side effects.

The new synthetic generation of drugs that control the PLA2 activity and the subsequent cascade of pro-inflammatory mediators could take the pharmaceutical industry by storm.

Inflammatory/allergic diseases affect billions of people worldwide. The most common drugs currently used to treat these numerous diseases are steroids, which are potent but are associated with severe side effects including metabolic changes (weight gain, increased blood pressure, diabetes), organ-specific effects (glaucoma, cataracts, bone fragility), and even psychotrophic side effects (depression, psychosis).

Yedgar, the Walter and Greta Stiel Professor of Heart Studies at the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada at the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine, and his research team has provided multi-functional, anti-inflammatory drugs (MFAIDs).

MFAIDs have shown excellent safety and were found efficient in treating diverse inflammatory/allergic conditions in animal models, using different ways of administration – oral, rectal, intravenous, inhaled and injected. These conditions included sepsis, inflammatory bowel diseases, asthma and central nervous system inflammation.

This platform technology has been exclusively licensed from the Hebrew University through the university’s Yissum Technology Transfer Company to Morria Biopharmaceuticals PLC (a British company), which is currently developing these drugs to treat inflammatory diseases of the airways (hay-fever, cystic fibrosis), the skin (eczema), the eye (conjunctivitis) and the gut (colitis, Crohn’s disease).