LNC Therapeutics, a French biotech company harnessing the properties of keystone single-strain bacteria to develop ground-breaking microbiome-based drugs, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the Investigational New Drug (IND) application for Xla1, the Company’s lead candidate being evaluated for the treatment of obesity and metabolic disorders.
Xla1 is a first-in-class, oral capsule treatment, using a live single bacterial strain of Christensenella minuta. With an active IND and the clinical c-GMP batch available, LNC Therapeutics is planning to assess the safety and tolerability of Xla1 in adults with obesity and metabolic abnormalities in a Phase 1 clinical trial in the US.
Christensenella is a keystone bacteria of healthy human gut microbiome. Since its discovery in 2012, the Christensenellaceae family has demonstrated a strong potential in obesity and metabolic diseases prevention in multiple scientific publications over Europe, America and Asia. Its absence is a key factor in the development of obesity and metabolic disorders. In fact, the relative abundance of Christensenella in the human gut is inversely related to host body mass index (BMI) and to the presence of several metabolic disease markers.
Xla1 has been selected from LNC Therapeutics proprietary bacterial strain library following a rigorous screening process. Furthermore, proof of concept studies in preclinical models have demonstrated the substantial efficacy of Xla1 on obesity and related metabolic markers.
As the first biotech company to explore the possibilities offered by Christensenella in human health, LNC Therapeutics paves the way toward a new therapeutic hope for obese patients.
“Based on the strong efficacy results from our preclinical studies, we believe our clinical candidate, Xla1, has broad potential for the treatment of patients with obesity and associated metabolic disorders.The FDA’s approval of our IND represents a major milestone in transitioning from a preclinical to a clinical-stage biotechnology company,”
said Dr. Georges Rawadi, CEO of LNC Therapeutics.
“We are very excited to move one step closer to bringing innovative single-strain microbiome-based therapies to address a large area of unmet medical need.”