News

Research on therapeutics against COVID-19: Ilse Aigner visits Pieris

Bernhard Seidenath, Chairman of the Bavarian Health Committee (CSU), Dr. Goran Martić, Alliance Management / Grant Management / Cooperation, Dr. Marina Pavlidou, Project Leader, Dr. Hitto Kaufmann, CSO / Head of the Research and Development Site, Tobias Reiß, Parliamentary Secretary of the CSU parliamentary group, Mayor Josef Niedermair and State Parliament President Ilse Aigner. (from left) © CSU Fraktion

State Parliament President Ilse Aigner and other political representatives visited the biotech company Pieris Pharmaceuticals in Hallbergmoos to see how research is progressing. Among other things, Pieris is developing a therapeutic against COVID-19 with funding from the Free State of Bavaria.

In July 2021, the first funding decision under the 50-million-euro Bavarian Therapy Strategy went to Pieris Pharmaceuticals GmbH from Hallbergmoos near Munich. Pieris intends to use the EUR 14.2 million to accelerate the clinical development of its product candidate. The Bavarian Therapy Strategy, which was adopted at the end of 2020, is intended to support promising Bavarian therapeutic approaches against COVID-19 and bring them to regulatory maturity.
Together with the President of the Bavarian State Parliament, Ilse Aigner, Bernhard Seidenath, Chairman of the Bavarian Health Committee, and Tobias Reiß, Parliamentary Secretary of the CSU parliamentary group, were briefed on the status quo of research into the drug candidate PRS-220 from Pieris.

Therapeutic approach against fibrotic lung injury following COVID-19 disease

PRS-220 is an inhalable therapeutic for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 induced lung injury. It will be evaluated for its efficacy in treating fibrotic lung injury as a late side effect of COVID-19 disease. In fact, more than one-third of patients hospitalized for a severe course of acute COVID-19 disease were found to have fibrotic lung changes.

This makes the Anticalin®-based compound PRS-220 a potential candidate for the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis secondary to SARS-CoV-2 infection, an indication for which there are currently no approved therapies.

Ilse Aigner explained during her visit: "Our means against the pandemic must be broad-based so that the virus completely loses its terror. The first step is vaccination. If infection nevertheless occurs, the next measures must be in place. We need effective medicines to mitigate symptoms and prevent late effects. The Bavarian therapy strategy starts precisely here and supports biotech companies in their development work - so that we can quickly and efficiently get a grip on the virus and its consequences."

Stephen S. Yoder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Pieris added, "PRS-220 is our most advanced, exclusively proprietary development program for an inhalable product to treat lung disease. The Bavarian government's support for the development of PRS-220 allows us to significantly accelerate candidate development and expand clinical investigation beyond idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. We continue to actively work to initiate clinical development as early as this year, allowing us to directly contribute to combating the global medical consequences of the COVID pandemic."

Pieris emerged from a spin-off from the Technical University of Munich in 2001 and is developing novel biotherapeutics based on its proprietary Anticalin® technology platform for the treatment of cancer and diseases of the lung, such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

BioM supports the therapy strategy

In Bavaria, numerous companies have been involved in corona research since the outbreak of the pandemic - not only in the development of diagnostics and vaccine candidates, but also in drug development. BioM had also been advocating for greater financial support for therapeutics against COVID-19 from policymakers since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
BioM's efforts and demands to initiate a funding measure for this purpose were ultimately successful with the launch of the Bavarian funding package "BayTherapie2020".


Newsletter

Subscribe

Archive