A Wayne biotech company is aiming to replace medications with personalized gene therapy, and it’s starting with rare pediatric diseases.

In partnership with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and flush with cash from its $24.2 million initial public stock offering, Medgenics is working with diseased tissue samples en route to developing a way to re-engineer them to produce the proteins and peptides they are supposed to produce, according to a subscriber-exclusive report in the Philadelphia Business Journal.

“Proteins are made in the patient’s body, and the patient doesn’t have to take a drug,” Chief Scientific Officer Garry Neil said of Medgenics’ Transduced Autologous Restorative Gene Therapy technology in the article. “The time for personalized medicine is here. You can care for all sorts of patients with this approach.”

Medgenics’ 2015 plans include five clinical trials targeting end-stage renal disease and related disorders, each with five to 15 patients, followed by testing of the gene therapy on short bowel syndrome in the second half of the year.

With the existence of 7,000 orphan diseases, Medgenics has the potential to help meet the needs of 25 million Americans.

Read more about the latest developments surrounding Medgenics in the Philadelphia Business Journal here, and check out previous Vista.Today coverage of the company’s IPO here.

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Top photo credit: IU School of Medicine via photopin cc