After the help received by Deinove with the BPI, the French Da Volterra has received 20 million euros from the european investment Bank (EIB). The French biotech will use the money to develop its flagship product DAV132 who has completed two clinical trials of phase I. The product is designed to avoid hospital-acquired infections such as Clostridium Difficile and fight against antibiotic resistance. This last project has convinced the EIB, which justifies its funding by “projects of innovation and development of bacterial resistance to antibiotics”, the French biotech.
A filter against the disruption of the microbiota
The DAV132 is “a product-based absorbent issued only in the lower part of the small intestine. Co-administered with any antibiotic, no matter where, it allows you to avoid the harmful effects of the latter on the intestinal flora,” explains The Tribune Florence Séjourné, president of Da Volterra. To avoid the emergence of resistance to antibiotics”, the DAV132 acts as “a filter,” she says. In the clear, when an antibiotic is administered alone, it disrupts the microbiota – composed of billions of microbes involved in the protection of human health, the proportion of resistant bacteria increases in the intestine, which can be at the origin of antibiotic resistance.
With its product, Da Volterra hopes to protect the wealth of the microbiota, which plays a role in functions of digestive, metabolic, immune and neurological”. However, the product has a preventive, and could not act in the event of the existence of a resistance to antibiotics, says Florence Stayed.
By partnering with labs and pharmaceutical, Da Volterra hopes to launch the product in 2019-2020 in Europe. For the United States, this will not be before 2021, stresses Florence Stayed.
12,500 deaths per year in France
Antibiotic resistance has become a health problem in France. It is the origin of 12,500 deaths per year in the country. It has also become a global issue. The general Assembly of the united Nations met on September 21, 2016, to discuss measures to combat the growing threat of antibiotic resistance.
In the world, by 2050, the direct and indirect costs of antimicrobial resistance will climb to 100,000 billion, according to a british report, and kill 10 million people per year.
