Destiny Pharma. Share News (DEST)

(Sharecast News) - Clinical-stage biotechnology company Destiny Pharma has entered into a collaboration agreement with SporeGen, it announced on Monday, which is a UK biotechnology company working on Bacillus and its applications.
The AIM-traded firm said the collaboration would co-develop SporeGen's 'SPOR-COV' product as a novel, preventive treatment for Covid-19.

Under the agreement, it said the parties would share any costs and commercial returns from SPOR-COV, and planned to complete a pre-clinical programme with the aim of being ready to enter the first human clinical trials within 18 months.

Destiny Pharma's expertise in pre-clinical and clinical drug development would be combined with SporeGen's understanding of Bacillus bacterial spores, to progress the SPOR‑COV project.

The board said the SPOR‑COV product consists of a proprietary formulation of Bacillus bacteria that would be administered nasally as a spray.

SPOR-COV had already been shown by SporeGen to provide complete protection in preclinical models of influenza virus, with SporeGen having intellectual property protection supporting the SPOR‑COV approach, which would be expanded during the project.

Destiny said SPOR-COV was different to vaccines, in that it uses the innate immune system with the aim of developing Covid-19 protection a few days after dosing.

As an 'easy-to-use' first line of defence, it had the potential to reduce Covid-19 infection rates and transmission "significantly".

The board said the final SPOR-COV product was planned to be straightforward to produce at high volumes and at low cost.

Additional attributes were that it could be stockpiled almost indefinitely without the need for cold chain refrigeration, as it is a "very stable" product.

It could be made available globally as a cost-effective measure in the fight against Covid-19,, as well as new Covid strains and other respiratory viral infections.

Destiny Pharma and SporeGen also announced that Innovate UK has awarded a grant of £0.8m to fund the majority of the £1m cost of the initial SPOR-COV programme.

The preclinical efficacy work would be undertaken in collaboration with professor Aras Kadioglu, at University of Liverpool, who is professor of bacterial pathogenesis in the Department of Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology, where he heads the bacterial pathogenesis and immunity group and is a "leading expert" in respiratory infection models and host immunity to infection.

The manufacturing and formulation development work would be carried out by HURO, an experienced manufacturer of bacterial product formulations based in Vietnam and part of PAN Group.

Destiny said the plan was to complete the required pre-clinical safety and efficacy studies, and also develop the manufacturing process in the next 18 months to be ready to commence the first human clinical studies thereafter.

"We are excited to announce the collaboration with SporeGen to co-develop their SPOR-COV product to prevent Covid-19 infections and the concurrent award of significant grant funding from Innovate UK," said chief executive officer Neil Clark.

"We are also pleased to be working with Professor Kadioglu at the University of Liverpool who has world class virology expertise."

Clark said Destiny was "committed" to building a novel pipeline targeted at preventing infections, and was "very pleased" to now be working with partners on the SPOR-COV project alongside its existing in-house 'XF' platform.

"The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has highlighted powerfully the need for innovation in developing new treatments to prevent and manage both viral and bacterial infections and Destiny Pharma remains committed to developing cost-effective products that meet this medical need."

At 1444 BST, shares in Destiny Pharma were up 15.71% at 56.7p.