CILcare, a CRO company specializing in hearing disorders, announced a strategic partnership with the start-up Vertidiag, a company specialized in balance disorders. By combining their know-how, CILcare and Vertidiag “can propose a complete service offering to identify and develop therapeutic solutions for people suffering from ear diseases including hearing loss, tinnitus, otitis, and vertigo.”
According to the company’s announcement, CILcare has developed its foundations on expertise in testing the efficacy and safety of drugs, gene & cell therapy, and implantable devices that target hearing loss, tinnitus, and otitis. CILcare’s team is mainly composed of doctors, engineers, and experts in otology and neurosciences. The company operates worldwide from its facilities in the South of France and in Lexington, Mass, where CILcare partners with CBSET, a not-for-profit CRO linked to MIT, and specialized in translational sciences.
“The inner ear is responsible for hearing and balance. To make hearing a priority, CILcare’s service offering had to include, in addition to our existing deep expertise of the cochlea, a deep expertise of the vestibule, which is rare and requires years of experience and practice,” said Celia Belline, CILcare CEO. “Our partnership with Vertidiag is a great opportunity to combine forces towards a common objective that aims to bring solutions for patients who suffer from ear diseases in the very near future.”
Vertidiag is said to have developed a technical platform to induce controlled vestibular disorders and to measure their functional impacts. This platform uses behavioral pharmacology, along with a battery of cellular and molecular biology tools that support the understanding of the mechanisms of action of potential drug candidates.
Vestibular disorders are of varying severity and incidence, and can range from severe, one-off occasions (vestibular neuritis) to recurrent vertigo (Ménière’s disease). They are particularly disabling for patients, leading to postural instability in the elderly resulting in harmful falls and certain types of motion sickness.
Although no drug has been approved on the market for inner ear diseases yet, hundreds of drug candidates are being developed and some will succeed in reaching the market in the next few years or even months. This gives hope to the hundreds of millions of people worldwide who suffer from hearing and balance impairments. CILcare and Vertidiag’s mission is to support and accelerate these development programs.
“Both Vertidiag and CILcare have a sense of urgency in defining and delivering solutions to biotech, pharma, medtech companies, and academics, with drug candidates that have the potential to become treatments for patients in the near future,” said Nicolas Chanut, Vertidiag CEO. “We know that working together will benefit this cause. Our teams share the same values of scientific and operational excellence; they trust each other and are naturally working together towards a common goal.”
Source: CILcare
Image: CILcare
