- Immuron was up as much as 114 per cent this morning after announcing the U.S. Department of Defense will fund $5.5 million for a new gastro medication
- Infectious diarrhoea is the most common illness reported by traveler’s visiting developing countries and U.S. troops deployed oversea
- Immuron and Naval Medical Research Centre will produce an oral medication to protect the troops against diarrhoea
Immuron was up as much as 114 per cent this morning after announcing the U.S. Department of Defense will fund $5.5 million for a new gastro medication.
The focus on this agreement is to develop a combined campylobacter and enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC)-specific anti-microbial preventative for clinical evaluation.
Campylobacter and ETEC are the leading causes of traveler’s diarrhoea and has a major affect on deployed U.S. troops.
Under the agreement, the Naval Medical Research Centre (NMRC) and Immuron will team up to manufacture and evaluate a new product to protect against these bacteria.
NMRC Head of the Campylobacter research division Dr Frédéric Poly said the deployed military have a long history of being affected by acute infectious diarrhoea.
“The good news is that we just had the confirmation that the funds were transferred, and we are ready and eager to start the project,” Frédéric said.
“To address this unmet need, we will be utilising our own vaccine expertise along with Immuron’s proprietary technology platform to develop an oral preventative product, which directly targets pathogenic bacteria at the site of infection within the gastrointestinal tract,” he added.
According to Immuron, diarrhoea decreases daily performance, affects judgement, decreases morale, and declines operational readiness in U.S. troops.
“Traveler’s diarrhoea is now recognised by the medical community to result in post-infectious sequelae, including post-infectious Irritable Bowel Syndrome and several post-infectious autoimmune diseases,” the company said.
Immuron CEO Dr Gary Jacob says the agreement is “wonderful” news.
“The new project expands our anti-infectious diseases clinical development program to include this campylobacter project with the U.S. Department of Defense, covering an additional key pathogen, Campylobacter, responsible for traveler’s diarrhoea,” Gary said.
“This program also further enhances our efforts to raise the profile of our flagship product, Travelan, and our in-house clinical program to develop IMM-124E as an FDA approved drug to prevent traveler’s diarrhoea,” he added.
Immuron’s Travelan is an oral medication that reduces the likelihood of getting traveler’s diarrhoea.
Every year, there is an estimated 1.5 billion episodes of diarrhoea worldwide. Out of these episodes, 2.2 million people die from the disease — mostly children in developing countries.
Under the terms of the agreement, two human clinical trials will be conducted.