New treatments using bacteria
A Ghent-based biotech company is competing on the European market thanks to its development of medicine made using living bacteria.
MRM Health is drawing on its two decades of expertise in microbiome research and development in Ghent's biotechnology park, and has a strategic partnership with the leading life sciences institute VIB (the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology).
This biotech company from Ghent is focusing its development on the assumption that all intestinal bacteria have an impact on general health, and that a lack or excess of certain bacteria could be the reason for a disease. For example, the link between intestinal flora and depression has already been proven.
MRM Health has, as a result, developed a medicine containing a combination of six different intestinal bacteria. The treatment has been tested on 45 patients affected by ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, obtaining convincing results without producing any side effects, unlike other medicines currently on the market.
As a result, the company, claiming to be the most advanced biotech in the field of inflammatory bowel disease, is now earning support from major investors, enabling them to market this treatment throughout Europe.
In future, the team plans to apply its research to Crohn's disease and liver diseases, and in the longer term, to treat some types of cancer.
A great result for the Belgian researchers in the health sector!