Israeli Covid drug also aids cancer immunotherapy patients

Bonus BioGroup’s MesenCure drug has shown to lower the inflammatory overreaction in cancer patients that can cause multisystem failure.

By Diana Bletter, Israel21c

Israeli biotechnology company Bonus BioGroup announced that its Covid drug, MesenCure, can also reduce life-threatening inflammatory overreaction in cancer patients treated with immunotherapy.

A trial conducted by Bonus BioGroup at the Jackson Laboratory in California showed that MesenCure significantly lowered the inflammatory overreaction in cancer patients that could have caused multisystem failure.

Studies show that up to 27 percent of patients undergoing biological cancer treatment who suffer from inflammatory overreaction may develop this potentially fatal complication.

Inflammatory overreaction develops in up to 78% of oncology patients treated with biological immunotherapies, which stimulate the immune system to figdht cancer, as well as in patients transplanted with blood-forming stem cells.

Experts estimate that by 2027, in the United States alone, more than 18,000 patients will suffer from an inflammatory overreaction following biological treatments for cancer that could subsequently develop into a fatal condition.

Shai Meretzki, CEO of Bonus BioGroup, said the company’s focus from the start has been cell therapy and tissue engineering to achieve bone tissue regeneration and reconstruction. The main building block is mesenchymal cells extracted from the patient’s adipose tissue.

With the outbreak of the global coronavirus epidemic, Bonus BioGroup started experimenting with the very same mesenchymal cells, isolated from adipose tissue of healthy donors, to enhance the ability to reduce inflammatory processes, including respiratory infections and other diseases.

These efforts led to MesenCure, which Bonus BioGroup will continue to develop to treat severely ill Covid patients.

“Demonstrating the success of the drug product MesenCure to integrate with cancer therapies is an important milestone for the company in realizing its vision to become a world leader in cellular therapy for the treatment of various diseases and medical conditions,” Meretzki said.

“These indications will present further financial opportunities … and will position Bonus BioGroup as an essential player in the field of oncology, in addition to regenerative medicine and tissue engineering,” he added.

Cancercancer treatmentCOVID-19Israeli medical researchIsraeli medical technologyIsraeli technology