GREATER MANCHESTER, UK – Today, Carocell Bio, the UK-based anti-inflammation therapeutics company, has been awarded an Innovate UK Smart grant of over £270,000 for the development of its lead JEL3108 peptide for burns treatment. JEL3108 has the potential to reduce burn pain and aid in scar prevention. The funding will help support further formulation development and pre-clinical testing.
The long-term outcome of burns treatment is primarily related to the degree of inflammation. Inflammation can have a significant effect on healing, pain, and long-term scarring. Carocell Bio’s JEL3108 provides a potential first-line treatment with a novel mechanism of action and delivery via advanced nanoparticle technology. Carocell Bio also plans to broaden JEL3108’s use in other therapy areas, for example scar prevention after an operation, given its novel mechanism of action.
Dr Mike Davies, Carocell Bio’s CEO said:
“This funding from Innovate UK is a testament to the potential of our technology to positively impact patients and healthcare systems, by providing effective treatments where there is significant unmet clinical need, including burns, scar prevention and other chronic inflammatory conditions. We are excited to progress our lead peptide JEL3108 to the next phase of development including our advanced nanoparticle delivery system which, coupled with our peptide’s effectiveness, is a potential game-changer for the clinic.”
The company is focused on reducing over-activation of the intracellular inflammatory cascade. Its aim is to reduce the release of inflammatory cytokines, and other inflammatory molecules, in order to reduce and prevent inflammation. Lead peptide JEL3108 forms part of the company’s therapeutic pipeline of proprietary peptides, which are highly selective for mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK, p38α), and which inhibit an important component in the intracellular inflammation cascade. JEL3108 is highly selective, with approximately greater than 150-fold selectivity for p38-alpha over p38-beta, and around 10,000-fold selectivity over other kinases, meaning that it delivers a very targeted and potentially safer treatment. Formulated using nanoparticle delivery systems to enhance cell penetration, the peptides are designed for topical delivery.
Carocell Bio expects to refine its nanoparticle-based formulation and delivery system for first-line treatment applications, and complete further pre-clinical studies by the end of March 2022. Its goal is to enter the clinic by early 2024.
