A live biotherapeutic remedy based on a woman’s female microbiome is under development to treat bacterial vaginosis. This common infection among women of reproductive age is linked to increased risk of miscarriage and complications to pregnancy and fertility.
The treatment is being developed in a partnership among Ferring Pharmaceuticals of Switzerland, Ferring subsidiary Rebiotix of Minnesota, and MyBiotics Pharma of Rehovot, Israel.
Currently, bacterial vaginosis is treated with antibiotics, which can disrupt the vaginal microbiome and does not prevent the infection from reoccurring. The aim of a microbiota-based treatment would be to reduce antibiotic use and provide a long-term treatment solution.
MyBiotics has developed culturing, fermentation and delivery technologies for restoring a balanced microbiome (bacterial community) anywhere in the body. These technologies are integrated with a computational AI platform to design unique live formulas that are highly potent.
The potential of live microbiota-based biotherapeutic products is expanding rapidly. The most clinically advanced formulations, derived from the human gut microbiome, are currently being developed to treat Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infection. Reproductive and maternal health products are the next frontier.
The new multi-year agreement builds on the existing collaboration between Ferring and MyBiotics, initiated in 2017, which has already piloted technologies intended to stabilize selected bacterial species critical to the health of the female reproductive tract using MyBiotics’ MyCrobe technology.
“Today’s agreement is an important evolution of our long-standing relationship with Ferring in the field of microbiota-based therapies for the benefit of women’s health, including reproduction and pregnancy,” said MyBiotics CEO, David Daboush.
“We are excited to build on that strong relationship targeted to bringing novel treatments to patients through our tailor-made microbiome technology platform.”
In October 2019, Israeli researchers published a groundbreaking study showing that chronic bacterial vaginosis could be treated using transplanted vaginal fluid from a healthy donor to restore a balanced microbiome.
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