Telormedix: Riding the gradient

Telormedix S.A. thinks it has found a way to avoid the systemic toxicity that has dashed hopes for some compounds targeting toll-like receptors. By using what it calls an "immunological gradient" approach to drug development, the company hopes to concentrate the activity of immunomodulators to localized tissue, reducing systemic exposure.

"The field of toll-like receptors has not been a great success in the past few years. It's been a roller coaster of very promising data followed by safety issues, but we are benefiting from that experience, and we hope that we have learned from the past. We think we know what to do to avoid those mistakes and to really learn from the clinical experience of molecules in the same class," co-founder and CEO Lorenzo Leoni told BioCentury...