Can microbiome-based therapeutics fight bacterial vaginosis?

ST PREX, Switzerland, ROSEVILLE, Minn., & ROHOVOT, Israel—Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Rebiotix Inc., and MyBiotics Pharma Ltd. have announced a multi-year strategic collaboration in which the companies plan to develop live microbiota-based biotherapeutics to address bacterial vaginosis (BV).

BV is a common vaginal infection among women of reproductive age, and it has been linked to increased risk of miscarriage, as well as complications for pregnancy and fertility. BV is currently treated with antibiotics — which disrupt the vaginal microbiome — and it’s common for bacterial vaginosis to return following treatment. A microbiota-based treatment could potentially reduce the need for antibiotic use, and provide a long-term treatment solution.

“We are proud to be undertaking this collaboration, as it is a critical step forward in meeting patient needs through the potential of the microbiome,” said Ken Blount, chief scientific officer of Rebiotix and vice president of Microbiome Research at Ferring Pharmaceuticals. “This collaboration with MyBiotics not only harnesses our collective expertise in developing live microbiota-based biotherapeutic technologies, but also reaffirms Ferring’s deep commitment to building families worldwide through innovations in reproductive medicine and maternal health.”

The multi-year agreement will combine MyBiotics’ unique culturing, delivery, and colonization technologies with Rebiotix’s expertise in developing clinical-stage live microbiota-based biotherapeutic products, and Ferring’s therapeutic development and commercial expertise. The new agreement builds on an existing collaboration between Ferring and MyBiotics that was initiated in 2017, which has already successfully 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. We look forward to combining our innovative MyCrobe live bacteria culturing, delivery and colonization technology with the world-leading development experience of Rebiotix for the benefit of women,” noted David Daboush, CEO of MyBiotics. “The collaboration with Rebiotix builds on our successful collaboration with Ferring, and we are excited to build on that strong relationship targeted to bringing novel treatments to patients through our tailor-made microbiome technology platform.”

MyBiotics has developed robust culturing, fermentation, and delivery technologies for generating a highly stable and diverse bacterial community that can be efficiently delivered to different sites across the human body, to restore microbiome equilibrium. The company’s technologies are effective for single microbes, complex microbial consortia, and whole microbiome products. This technology is also integrated with a computational AI platform, which is said to enable the design of unique microbial consortia and whole microbiome profiles.