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Finch, Crestovo merge to develop late-stage C. difficile candidate, microbiome pipeline
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Finch Therapeutics and Crestovo announced they have merged to create “a fully integrated microbiome company” called the Finch Therapeutics Group.
The merger combines Finch’s manufacturing resources, discovery platform and product pipeline with Crestovo’s IP assets and late-stage microbiome drug candidate for Clostridium difficile infection, according to a press release.
The company’s lead candidate, CP101, is an oral capsule containing freeze-dried fecal microbiota from human donors under development for recurrent C. difficile infection. Researchers are studying it in a placebo-controlled trial called PRISM 3 (n = 240), which builds on earlier research showing clinical success with the product. In this previous single-center, open-label study, Crestovo’s academic collaborators, Alexander Khoruts, MD, and Michael J. Sadowsky, PhD, both from BioTechnology Institute at University of Minnesota, showed 88% of 49 patients with recurrent CDI had no further recurrence over 2 months.
“This combination of a potential first-in-class product candidate for recurrent C. difficile infections with a novel technology platform for developing Rationally-Selected Microbiota products uniquely positions Finch Therapeutics Group to deliver on both the near- and long-term promise of microbiome therapies to transform public health and quickly reach the patient populations we yearn to serve,” Mark Smith, PhD, CEO of Finch Therapeutics Group, said in the press release. “With the network of collaborators from both companies driving patient recruitment in PRISM 3, ... we look forward to accelerating the development of this important new class of therapy.”
The merger also includes Finch’s stool donation program, which manufactures and distributes microbial therapies in collaboration with OpenBiome, and will allow the company to quickly scale manufacturing of products in its microbiome pipeline, according to the press release.
Finch also announced in April that it has partnered with Takeda to develop a synthetic microbiome therapeutic for ulcerative colitis.
Disclosure: Smith is employed by Finch. Khoruts and Sadowsky report financial relationships with Crestovo.