Over the past month or so, I’ve been reading about QuBiologics. I was given the opportunity to get a little more information from the CEO, Hal Gunn. Here’s what I found out:
What is your company’s goal?
Our goal is to develop treatments for inflammatory bowel disease that restore health in a way compatible with our body’s own healing capacities. I’ve always believed in a healthful approach that is in harmony with our body and embraces the power of our body’s natural defenses. We are striving to develop treatments with a very good safety profile that address the underlying cause of the disease without requiring lifelong treatment.
What do you do?
Qu Biologics is developing Site Specific Immunomodulators (SSIs), novel immunotherapies derived from components of inactivated bacteria, designed to restore the body’s normal immune function to treat immune-related diseases, such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Rather than suppressing the immune system like current treatments, SSIs are designed to restore the body’s innate immune system and correct the dysfunctional immune response. Inflammation is part of the normal biological response to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged or infected cells, or irritants. Typically in this context, once the harmful stimulus is cleared, the tissue heals and the inflammation resolves. In inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, macrophage defect or deficiency results in an inability to clear chronic bacterial infection, providing a trigger for a chronic immune response and inflammation. Qu Biologics SSIs are designed to recruit activated innate immune cells to the gastrointestinal tissue in patients with IBD, clearing dysbiosis and chronic bacterial infection, the underlying trigger for inflammatory bowel disease, resulting in disease resolution.
How do you hope to help people fighting IBD?
We are hopeful that our treatments may be an important advance in inflammatory bowel disease treatment, treating the underlying cause of the disease, not simply suppressing immune function. Our goal is to create safe and effective therapies that restore normal immune function and our body’s capacity to heal, providing treatments that result in sustained long-term remission off of medications.
For Qu, it is important to understand, from the perspective of people living with inflammatory bowel disease, the impact of what we are doing and how it affects their lives. We have an IBD Community Advisory Panel in order to be optimally informed about the experiences of people living with the disease. The valuable insight the Advisory panel provides helps us develop and deliver treatments and research studies directly relevant to those with IBD and their caregivers.
What do you hope to accomplish?
Through our clinical trials in Crohn’s disease (www.qucrohnstrial.com) and ulcerative colitis (www.qubiologics.com/ulcerativecolitis), we hope to demonstrate that QBECO SSI treatment is a safe and effective treatment for inflammatory bowel disease, and, ultimately, that QBECO SSI becomes available as a new treatment option for those living with IBD. We are excited about the potential of QBECO SSI treatment, and are hopeful of the possibility of improving the lives of those living with IBD.
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They’re currently accepting participants into their clinical trial for Crohn’s Disease and they will be starting a clinical trial for ulcerative colitis around the 27th or 28th. If you think you might be interested in learning more about the trial, please click here. If you have questions about QuBiologics, and the Ulcerative Colitis trial, you can email them by clicking here.
NOTE: This information is provided strictly for informational purposes. Colitis Ninja was created to provide encouragement, support, laughter and information on various treatment for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and does not claim to cure, treat or diagnose Crohn’s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis. Please contact your doctor if you are having problems or before you try any new forms of treatment. Please see my disclaimer for more details.
