Nestle Health Science, a subsidiary of the Swiss food giant, has invested $65 million into the USA’s Seres Health.
Seres is developing a novel class of biological drugs that are designed to treat diseases by restoring the function of a dysbiotic microbiome. Its portfolio currently focuses infectious, metabolic and inflammatory diseases.
The money from Nestle Health Science will help the progress of Seres’ lead product candidate, SER-109, for preventing the recurrence of Clostridium difficile infection, into Phase III trials. Chief executive Greg Behar, who will take a seat on the Seres board, said “we have invested in an industry leader in microbiome therapeutics seeking to make breakthroughs in the understanding of diseases and how we manage them, based on microbial organisms, fundamentally different from traditional drugs”.
He added that “they fit into a promising area we are striving to develop with clinically proven innovations that can improve patient outcome and help reduce health economic costs associated with disease. Scientific advances in this area are rapidly expanding and we are committed to make such external moves, alongside our own R&D, to be at the cutting-edge”.
