BioAlliance Pharma SA a company dedicated to the supportive care and treatment of cancer patients, announced the award of €2 million in funding over 30 months from the Fond Unique Interministériel (a French programme supporting collaborative research projects) including an amount of €743,000 specifically allocated to BioAlliance Pharma. This programme aims at establishing the proof of concept for the administration by mucosal route of biological products. The first application is a peptide benefiting from the delivery properties of the Lauriad mucoadhesive technology.

This programme will also permit to test the Lauriad technology in the veterinary area. This collaborative program, co-labelled by both Clusters of excellence Medicen Paris Region and Atlanpôle, aims at designing a flu vaccine administered by mucosal route.

The consortium is led by BioAlliance Pharma and involves several academic centres and industrial partners: the Laboratoire de Virologie et Pathologies Humaines VirPath (Lyon), headed by Pr. Bruno Lina, National flu reference centre. The Laboratoire EA 401 Matériaux et Produits de Santé, headed by Pr. Pierre Tchoreloff from Paris XI University, specialized in optimization of peptide formulations. Sogeval, a French veterinary drug company, which develops, produces, and markets veterinary products. It has developed a range of pet drugs, particularly in infectiology.

The involvement of Sogeval could open the path to new opportunities for the Lauriad muco-adhesive technology in the veterinary area. Gredeco, founded by Pr. Lofti Ben Slama (Paris), will be in charge of the studies on peptide mucous penetration. Pr Pierre Dellamonica’s team, from Nice University Hospital, worldwide known for its expertise in infectiology, will be in charge of immunological assessment prior to entry into clinical phase.

“This programme is capitalizing on the Lauriad patented mucoadhesive technology, already validated with chemical molecules for Loramyc and Sitavir. This substantial public grant will open the path to new application fields with complex biological products and new potential markets”, stated Dominique Costantini, CEO of BioAlliance Pharma.

BioAlliance dedicated to cancer and supportive care – cancer related pathologies, chemotherapy and radiotherapy-induced complications and opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients, conceives and develops innovative products, especially in the hospital setting and for orphan or rare diseases.