Feb 27, 2023
Neal Koller is the CEO of Alphyn Biologics, which focuses on improving therapy for skin diseases. Their first topical drug treats both atopic dermatitis and atopic dermatitis with secondary infection. The goal is to treat the recognized immune component of the disease and the bacterial component. Those most affected by this disease are ages 2 to 11 though it is a lifelong recurring problem with only a multi-drug treatment regimen available.
Neal explains, "I think we've got three advantages. First, the plant material that we're using is the microbial and small molecule defense liquid of the plant, and so it's got a number of different bioactive compounds. One advantage for us is in our drug product, we have multiple bioactive compounds, which target a disease, in our case, atopic dermatitis, in different ways. So we have multiple ways we can attack and treat the disease. That's unique and different, having multiple ways, versus a standard drug generally only has one bioactive compound and one way to treat a disease."
"The second advantage is that by using the plant-derived material in the way in which we're using it, we've had a faster path, and faster progress through our work to get to human clinical trials. That's primarily because our material, our drug substance, has a very, very strong safety profile."
"Then the third advantage so far, unless, of course, the FDA changes this, is that because our drug product is plant-derived, there isn't a generic drug approval path. You, at the moment, still can't go into the lab, mix up some chemistry experiments, keep it simple, and say, "My chemistry is similar to Alphyn's chemistry, so please give me approval."
#AlphynBiologics #AtopicDermatitis #Dermatology #SkinDisease