Empowered Patient Podcast Bedside Red Blood Cell Encapsulation Delivering Drugs for Rare Diseases with Dr. Luca Benatti EryDel
Dr. Luca Benatti is the CEO of EryDel, a biotech company developing and commercializing cell-therapy treatments for rare diseases using autologous red blood cell encapsulation technology to deliver drugs. With a focus on the rare genetic disease Ataxia Telangiectasia (AT), Erydel has just completed a multi-center, multi-national phase III trial for the disease. Their symptomatic treatment has been shown to delay the progression of the disease and could be part of a regular immunoglobulin therapy session for these patients.
Luca explains, "The first characteristic of our technology since there are similar technologies that utilize red blood cells to deliver therapeutics, is that we are the only one that has developed a technology that can work at the bedside. So, it's really the only one that can use the patient's blood, and we don't need to have a centralized lab. The beauty of this technology is that it is the only one that can use a sustained release formulations technology - that is, the one that is actually being developed for Ataxia Telangiectasia - on which we have completed phase III study results."
"So, from the time of blood withdrawal from the patients and for our lead product, we take 50 milliliters of blood from the patient, a small amount, and within a couple of hours, patients can go home. They are only required to stay for the blood withdrawal and the blood infusions. The rest of the process is done by a small machine that is fully automated and operated by trained personnel."
#EryDel #AtaxiaTelangiectasia #EryDex #RareDisease #AT