Promethera Biosciences

Promethera Biosciences is a biotechnology company developing regenerative medicine treatments for liver diseases that is headquartered in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium and was founded in 2009 by Etienne Sokal.

The company is a spin-off of the Universita Catholique de Louvain, and is interested in developing treatments based on allogenic adult stem cell technology. They look to commercialize cell therapy products to treat liver diseases using progenitor cells from healthy human livers. The progenitor cells that Promethera Biosciences are adult liver-derived mesenchymal progenitor cells.

Promethera Biosciences looks to develop new cell and antibody-based therapies for the treatment of liver diseases. The company has developed a cell-based therapy called HepaStem, which has potential to provide novel treatment options for chronic and acute live diseases. This could be successful for Acute-on-Chronic Liver Failure, fibrosis, and non-alcoholic SteatoHepatitis. The HepaStem can be administered intravenously, transported through the bloodstream to the liver, and provide it a chance to repair and regenerate. It reduces inflammation processes as well as fibrogenesis, as it inhibits hepatic stellate cell activation and collagen secretion, and degrades the excessive extracellular matrix.

Another product of Promethera Biosciences is the H2Stem. The H2Stem is used to display a high capacity for homing, in situ differentiation into hepatocytes and repopulation after their transplantation in a model of human xenografts.

The company's third and fourth product are the antibody-based drug candidates which includes the Atrosab and Atrosimab. These products target the pro-inflammatory tumor necrosis factor receptor 1, and blocks its activation by TNF-alpha without interacting with the TNF receptor 2.