Immune Therapy Holdings

Immune Therapy Holdings AB

Type	Privately held Aktiebolag
Industry	Research and development
Founded	2005
Headquarters	Stockholm, Sweden
Key people	Niclas Adler (Chairman), Hans Glise (CEO), Ola Winqvist (CTO) Petra Jones (COO), Ahsan Amjad (CBDO)
Products	Immunotherapy
Website	www.ithgroup.eu

Immune Therapy Holdings AB or ITH is a Swedish biotechnology R&D holding company headquartered at the Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm.

ITH's research is primarily focused on its Tailored Leukapheresis (TLA) treatment for immune mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs).^[1]

Tailored Leukapheresis treatment

Tailored Leukapheresis (TLA) treatment is an apheresis immunotherapy for selective removal of disease-causing pro-inflammatory cells extracorporeally, which has therapeutic application in various IMIDs that are caused and maintained by inflammation.

TLA utilises the natural affinity of chemokines and chemokine receptors to selectively attract, bind, and deplete circulating pro-inflammatory cells en route to the site of inflammation. It is the first, and hitherto novel, apheresis technology with a demonstrated efficacy in targeting and removing selected leukocytes while leaving all other blood cells unaffected.^[2]

The immunotherapy has been evaluated in a Phase I/II placebo-controlled clinical trial, where all primary and secondary clinical endpoints were successfully met and the treatment showed complete absence of any side effects of clinical significance.^[3] This represents an important progress beyond the state-of-the-art in anti-inflammatory therapeutics since TLA can dampen inflammation without blocking systemic inflammatory pathways or causing a general immunosuppression, which are characteristic of existing treatment.

Awards and funding

TLA has received numerous medical innovation awards including the coveted Dagens Medicin's Athena Prize (Sweden, 2013)^[4] and Universal Biotech Innovation Prize (France, 2012).^[5] During 2014, TLA was selected by the Swedish Institute for its Innovative Sweden exhibition that highlights Swedish innovativeness worldwide.^[6]

TLA has received competitive research funding from the following sources:

• 2010: Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (Phase I/II Clinical Trial on IBD): SEK 5 Million.^[7]

• 2012: European Union Eureka EUROSTARS (Phase I/II Clinical Trial on ARDS): SEK 5 Million.^[8]

• 2013: Swedish Research Council (Phase I/II Clinical Trial on paediatric IBD, PSC, alcoholic hepatitis, RA, MS and ALS): SEK 5 Million.^[9]

• 2013: Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (Phase II Clinical Trial on IBD): SEK 5 Million

Target market

The global anti-inflammatory therapeutics market was $57.8 billion in 2010 and is estimated to increase at a CAGR of 5.8% between 2010 and 2017 to a total value of $85.9 billion. ^[10]

References