Dr. Sadasivan Vidyasagar, Associate Professor at University of Florida, and entrinsic bioscience CEO Stephen Gatto, Receive University of Florida's 'Invention of the Year 2020' Award

NORWOOD, Mass., Sept. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- entrinsic bioscience (EBS), a company pioneering a next generation protein modulation technology, today announced that its co-founder, Dr. Sadasivan (Sagar) Vidyasagar, an Associate Professor at University of Florida (UF), and entrinsic bioscience's Chief Executive Officer, Stephen Gatto, received the "Invention of the Year 2020" Award from the University of Florida for their novel amino-acid technology that targets Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), the major cause of death in COVID-19 patients. The annual award recognizes groundbreaking inventions that are poised to make valuable impacts on society.

"During ARDS pathogenesis, which is one of the major causes of death in COVID-19 patients, the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) function is impaired, leading to lung inflammation and fluid accumulation. Current available treatment options are limited to ventilators, which can cause irreversible damage to the epithelial barrier, further impairing ENaC function and increasing fluid accumulation," said Dr. Vidyasagar. "Our differentiated concept is built upon our years of work in treating gastrointestinal (GI) toxicity in cancer patients with precise combinations of protein-based biocatalysts to regulate key cell functions, including absorption, secretion and barrier function. entrinsic's therapeutic candidate VS-025 targets the dysregulated protein responsible for clearing the fluid in the lungs. I am honored and humbled to receive this award and look forward to initiating studies to increase our understanding of this mechanism of action and our formulation's potential as a safe and effective therapeutic intervention to help these patients. I would like to thank Steve and the entrinsic team for supporting our discovery and program development going forward."

The University of Florida and entrinsic bioscience filed a joint patent on the formulation whereby entrinsic will have full licensing rights.

Dr. Vidyasagar began his career as a clinician with the goal of reducing the tragic number of deaths and malabsorption defects associated with diarrhea and dysentery in India. His clinical research led to a share of a $40 million National Space Biomedical Research Institute/BARDA grant (funded by NASA) to treat astronaut GI toxicity caused by deep space radiation, which he found to be similar to the GI toxicity caused by chemotherapy and radiation cancer treatment. His experiments generated new data on protein regulation (published in Nature's Scientific Reports) and the impact of novel, precise amino acid combinations to modulate chloride secretion. This led to the subsequent development of enterade® Advanced Oncology Formula, which is clinically proven to significantly reduce the GI side effects of cancer treatment and successfully used to help treat 30,000+ cancer patients. Dr. Vidyasagar is currently Associate Professor in Radiation Oncology at the University of Florida College of Medicine.

"I am thrilled to share this award with Dr. Vidyasagar and the UF team. Our findings targeting ENaC and the impacts it has on ARDS and COVID-19 continue to push the limits of our proprietary protein modulation technology, which we believe may provide the impetus for the development of novel treatment paradigms across an array of therapeutic areas with high unmet need," said Mr. Gatto. "Elemental amino acids, the fundamental building blocks of life, have the potential to represent a whole new class of therapeutic solutions to many of today's most difficult disease states. We look forward to continuing to support Dr. Vidyasagar and the UF team with the preclinical and clinical development of this vitally important program. Because our proprietary formulations are based upon elemental amino acids, we believe clinical studies in humans for VS-025 could be expeditiously initiated due to the favorable safety profile of the platform."

About entrinsic bioscience Inc.

EBS is a consumer bioscience business pioneering a next generation protein modulation technology to bring groundbreaking products to three large market segments: Beverages, Consumer Health, and Pharmaceuticals (via RxAAs: patented Prescription Amino Acids). The Company's proprietary Amino Acid Cellular Transport and Signaling (ACTS) protein modulation technology is a clinically proven, highly customizable platform for improving health and wellness and addressing serious disease states (including potentially groundbreaking treatments for celiac disease, Crohn's, IBS, colitis, cystic fibrosis GI complications and other GI disorders with high unmet medical need). www.entrinsicbioscience.com

Contact entrinsic bioscience:

Stephen Gatto
Chief Executive Officer
[email protected] 
781-352-5459

Media Contact:

Emily Wong or Holly Hancock
MacDougall
[email protected] 
617-653-6150

SOURCE entrinsic bioscience