Senén Vilaró Prize: Iproteos, more efficient and less invasive drugs based on peptides

Doctor Teresa Tarragó, co-founder of Iproteos.
Doctor Teresa Tarragó, co-founder of Iproteos.
Research
(20/02/2018)

Iproteos, awarded with the Senén Vilaró Prize of the UB Board of Trustees and Bosch i Gimpera Foundation, is a biotechnological spinoff from the University of Barcelona and the Institute of Biomedical Research (IRB Barcelona) that dedicates its activity to the research and development of drugs for the treatment of uncovered medical needs. IPROTech technology represents the scientific core on which the spinoff acts. This technology enables designing future drugs based on peptides, called peptidominetics, and allows researchers to speed their research up as well as obtaining new molecules which can become drugs. Using peptidominetic biotechnology as drugs involves a lower toxicity risk compared to common drugs based on small molecules, and these stand out for its accuracies and the ability to reach intracellular targets.

Doctor Teresa Tarragó, co-founder of Iproteos.
Doctor Teresa Tarragó, co-founder of Iproteos.
Research
20/02/2018

Iproteos, awarded with the Senén Vilaró Prize of the UB Board of Trustees and Bosch i Gimpera Foundation, is a biotechnological spinoff from the University of Barcelona and the Institute of Biomedical Research (IRB Barcelona) that dedicates its activity to the research and development of drugs for the treatment of uncovered medical needs. IPROTech technology represents the scientific core on which the spinoff acts. This technology enables designing future drugs based on peptides, called peptidominetics, and allows researchers to speed their research up as well as obtaining new molecules which can become drugs. Using peptidominetic biotechnology as drugs involves a lower toxicity risk compared to common drugs based on small molecules, and these stand out for its accuracies and the ability to reach intracellular targets.

Iproteos bases its R&D activity by applying its IPROTech technology aiming to develop non-invasive treatments which are efficient for different diseases, such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, cancer, and arteriosclerosis. At the moment, most of the existing treatments for diseases related to the central nervous system are invasive and usually palliative and non-healing. The project under an advanced stage is the one on schizophrenia; in particular, it is in the preclinical regulatory phase, and by late 2018 the study phase 1 in humans will start, and will linger until 2019. Afterwards, during 2019-2020, the phase 2 will continue, and will try to test the drug on a small group of people with the disease. The objective of this spinoff is to license this first product in 2021 with a bigger company to carry out clinical trials with a bigger number of patients.  

In 2016, the biotechnological company obtained € 1,5 million of private capital. With this amount of money, Iproteos has already reached the € 3 million of external capital with public and private investments. 
 
The company was created in June 2011 as a result of the research carried out by the group of the lecturer of the UB Ernest Giralt, from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona). The project is based on a technology that comes from the research lines that were developed by Doctor Teresa Tarragó, co-founder of Iproteos.