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Oxford-based biotech company Ochre Bio is partnering with German-based Boehringer Ingelheim to develop treatments harnessing the liver’s natural capacity to regenerate.
According to the British Liver Trust, chronic liver disease is the only major disease where death rates are rising. Compared with 1970, death rates from liver disease are four times higher today.
In the UK, 10,000 people die annually from liver disease each year, which equates to 27 deaths a day. It’s not just the elderly who die from it either. According to the UK Health Security Agency, it is the largest killer of 35- to 49-year-olds in the UK.
The only option for patients suffering from chronic liver disease is a liver transplant. However, these aren’t in ready supply.
As the liver is the only organ that can regenerate, for a number of decades Oxford-based biotech company, Ochre Bio, has been working on developing drugs that enable diseased livers to restore this self-repair capability.
This work has involved analysing thousands of donated human livers and then using its proprietary drug discovery platform in combination with machine learning and big human datasets, to develop a treatment that harnesses the organ’s capacity to regenerate.
In a $1bn partnership deal with German pharma group Boehringer Ingelheim, Ochre Bio will now further develop these regenerative treatments.
Søren Tullin, senior vice-president and global head of cardiometabolic diseases research at Boehringer Ingelheim, said: “Ochre Bio brings to the table unique and exciting capabilities in liver disease research. We believe their application of advanced genomics and machine learning coupled with human-centric translational models holds the potential to uncover novel regenerative pathways that will make a meaningful difference in the lives of those affected by chronic liver disease.”
Under this partnership, Ochre Bio will receive an initial $35m investment, rising to more than $1bn in royalties if treatments are successfully brought through clinical trials.
