Anadis therapy aiming to ease travellers' paths
Wednesday, 03 September, 2003
It's a malady with many colourful names -- Montezuma's revenge, Delhi belly, the Karachi Crouch -- but traveller's diarrhoea, by any other name, has disembowelled many a costly overseas holiday or business trip.
But an ounce of prevention, in the form of a few milligrams of Preventyn, may soon be helping travellers to keep their friendly gut floras free of weedy, toxic strains of E. coli bacteria lurking in the local water or cuisine of foreign lands.
Melbourne-based biotechnology company Anadis (ASX:ANX) is gearing up to launch its new preventative therapy for traveller's diarrhoea -- a pill containing a cocktail of antibodies to neutralise unfriendly E. coli.
Since Anadis completed successful clinical trials of its novel therapeutic, its path to market has been strewn with obstacles. The company's nutraceuticals manager, Steven Skorobogaty said September 11, the Bali bombing and then SARS took their toll on international travel.
The Pan Pharmaceuticals episode then spiked the launch -- the company has changed the product's name from Travelan to Preventyn, so consumers won't confuse it with the notorious Travacalm motion-sickness pills at the centre of the Pan fiasco.
The company is now awaiting registration for Preventyn from the Therapeutic Goods Administration. It already has approval from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to vaccinate dairy cows with its novel vaccine, which contains a mixture of surface antigens from toxicogenic strains of E. coli.
Anadis' commercial partner, the Tatura Dairy Company, has begun collecting colostrum from 1200 dairy cows injected with the vaccine.
The target antigens are from two families: CFA proteins from the hair-like pili that allow the microbes to attach to the surface of the gut, and the O proteins of the protein coat.
The mechanism of the new therapy is very different from that of Modium, a widely used anti-spasmodic that relieves some of the symptoms of traveller's diarrhoea.
Preventyn coats the surface of the bacteria, so they cannot bind to the gut surface -- an essential step before they can activate and secrete the toxins that induce the violent gut spasms of traveller's diarrhoea.
Skorobogaty said that, in keeping the microbes off the gut wall, Preventyn gives the person's immune system time to detect the aliens and induce durable, natural immunity.
The traveller takes the pills with a meal before and during the trip, to avoid diarrhoea. The pills employ a dairy-derived compound discovered and patented by Anadis, which protects the antibodies during transit through the acidic environment of the stomach, en route to the lower digestive tract. "I've personally trialled it on many trips to Asia, and some of my friends in the military who tried Preventyn told me they stayed healthy while all their mates came down with diarrhoea," Skorobogaty said.
The company is planning an initial launch into the Melbourne market in the first quarter of next year.
"We're very confident it works, and we can't wait to see how the market accepts it," Skorobogaty said.
Stem cell experiments conducted in space
Scientists are one step closer to manufacturing stem cells in space — which could speed up...
Plug-and-play test evaluates T cell immunotherapy effectiveness
The plug-and-play test enables real-time monitoring of T cells that have been engineered to fight...
Common heart medicine may be causing depression
Beta blockers are unlikely to be needed for heart attack patients who have a normal pumping...