Peaches Biotech publishes positive “in vivo” results of its drug PRS CK STORM

Peaches Biotech publishes positive "in vivo" results of its drug PRS CK STORM against the cytokine storm associated with infectious processes, including COVID-19

Madrid, May 10, 2022.- Peaches Biotech Group, a Spanish company specialized in regenerative medicine and advanced therapies is developing a series of biological drugs obtained by cultivating different primary tissue cells and also mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) with M2 macrophages, in order to produce anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic effects, acting on the behaviour of proinflammatory cytokines of the innate immune system.

One of these products is PRS CK STORM, named based on a patent developed by Peaches Biotech, from co-culture between M2 macrophages (M2-polarized monocytes) and mesenchymal cells, whose safety and efficacy have been tested on this animal study.

The journal Biomedicines belongs to the group specialized in scientific publications MPDI, which publishes today this study under the title "Evaluation in an "in vivo" cytokine storm model of the safety and efficacy of intravenous administration of PRS CK STORM (standardized conditioned medium obtained by co-culture of M2 macrophages from monocytes and mesenchymal stromal cells).

The results obtained in the "in vivo" study, by the model generated with a bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) as the causative agent of acute lung damage caused by the cytokine storm in mice, show the great efficacy and safety of this product to combat the autoimmune reaction triggered by the cytokine storm.

Histopathological analysis of the various organs in the mice, including the lungs, damaged after LPS administration, showed how the damage was reversed, to the point of its disappearance in the mice treated with PRS CK STORM at the highest dose. high of the three used in the trial. These results were clearly superior to those observed in mice treated with Anakinra (one of the current treatments for this type of pathology).

Together, the results show that PRS CK STORM, composed of a secretome of the co-culture of M2 macrophages with MSCs, in the doses chosen for the study, have shown a great capacity to reduce acute inflammation in cytokine storms, associated with severe infections, such as COVID-19.

In addition, it has also demonstrated its efficacy as an antifibrotic drug, avoiding the negative consequences in the medium and long term acute inflammatory phenomenas, by immunoregulating the activity of the innate immune system and improving its coordination with adaptive immunity.

In the words of Pedro Lapuente, Scientific Director of Peaches Biotech and main author of said publication: "Understanding how macrophages communicate and interrelate with mesenchymal stromal cells is a great advance that will allow us to accelerate clinical solutions to treat inflammatory processes, caused by a exacerbated immune reaction, causing a cytokine storm in response to infection. We have observed a recovery of damaged lung tissue that has surprised us and has given us a great deal of optimism for its clinical use in patients".

The PRS CK STORM drug has been manufactured by co-cultivation without direct contact of M2 macrophages with MSCs at the facilities of Histocell, a company authorized to manufacture drugs for cell therapy, under GMP standards.

This research is possible thanks to the public-private collaboration of Peaches Biotech with the Center for Biomedical Research of Aragon (CIBA, Zaragoza) and the bioincubator of the University Hospital of Fuenlabrada.

With this drug, the company plans to start a clinical triasl soon in order to evaluate the safety and efficacy of these in patients of various hospitals in Madrid.

(1) Sources:

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Rudd, K.E.; Johnson, S.C.; Agesa, K.M.; Shackelford, K.A.; Tsoi, D.; Kievlan, D.R.; et al. Global, regional, and national sepsis incidence and mortality, 1990-2017: Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study. Lancet 2020, 395, 200-211