The Spanish pharmaceutical firm Almirall has acquired the rights to a drug producing antibodies resistant to proteins capable of blocking autoimmune pathologies. The treatment was developed by the American company 23andMe, which sells genetic test kits.
In the United States, genetic testing is very popular. Knowing the history of illnesses of family members, learning more about their ancestors… It is in this area that the American company 23andMe specializes, which has been offering saliva genetic test kits since 2006.
Based on data from their customers, the company has developed a drug targeting a family of proteins associated with several autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, including lupus or the Crohn’s disease.
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease, characterized by auto-antibodies and which can affect several organs (kidney, heart, brain). Crohn’s disease refers to a chronic pathology of autoimmune origin that causes inflammation and irritation in the intestine.
“Developing precision medicine”
The firm 23andMe has just ceded the rights to this treatment to the Spanish pharmacy Almirall SA. It is now she who will continue the tests and develop the drug, thanks to 80% of the ten million users of 23andMe who have agreed to transmit their genetic data.
“Partnering with 23andMe, a leader in genetics and biotechnology, gives us a unique opportunity to address unmet medical needs in immunodermatology,” said in a statement Bhushan Hardas, Chief Scientific Officer of Almirall.
In 2018, 23andMe had sold all of its genetic data to the English pharmaceutical giant Glaxosmithkline, for the sum of 300 million dollars. A transaction that had sparked a lively controversy.
In the pages of Timethe head of the medical ethics division of the university of New York medicine Arthur Caplan believed in particular that customers who paid to perform the test and then agreed to give up their data for the benefit of the company should be compensated.
For their part, Glaxolithkline and 23andMe had ensured in a statement that this new partnership would aim to “develop precision medicine, develop patient subgroups and more easily constitute cohorts for clinical studies”.
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