“Dealing with people, not patients”: Pharma leaders warn of dangers of overpromising microbiome innovation at Future Food-Tech

23 Oct 2019 --- The microbiome sector is rapidly evolving, but further quantitative research is vital for making the best use of the field’s potential. This was the general consensus among speakers at Future-Food Tech London last week, some of whom spoke NutritionInsight about key points from the panel discussion entitled Our Gut Feeling: The Link Between Microbiome and the Brain.

“A highlight from the panel discussion was the potential of microbiome science to bring innovative, potentially disruptive therapies to mental health patients. Synergies, rather than competition, between pharma or biotech and nutrition solutions will be the best way forward,” explains Stefan Catsicas, who was the session chair. He is a Founding Partner at Skyviews Life Science in Switzerland and former CTO at Nestlé. 

The microbiome has helped aid understanding the etiologies of previously untreatable diseases, adds Isabelle De Cremoux, CEO of Seventure Partners in France. “The field opens ways for finding nutritional, pharmaceutical or digital solutions to maintain peoples’ health or to treat chronic diseases as never before. The microbiome is a disruptive field and concerns a huge number of patients. Consumer awareness and expectation is high.”

Leaders in the microbiome field gathered at Future Food-Tech London.However, Catsicas warns that the industry “shouldn’t deal with consumers or patients; we should deal with people. We need to move with ambition, but carefully, in this promising field so that we don’t overpromise too much, too soon. Health payers see the potential for this field as being a way to reduce health costs. When everybody’s interests converge on something, it grows quickly, and big.” 

Bolstering quantitative evidence
The speakers also highlight that gathering further data is key to progressing the field, with Philip Strandwitz, Co-Founder and CEO of Holobiome, noting that “the quickest way to validate science is through interventions in people.”

“Part of that is seeing how we can generate the most data in them. The tools for collecting data from people has never been more advanced,” he states. 

The panel also emphasized the need for rigorous, evidence-based claims to ensure important returns for companies and investors. De Cremoux further highlights that the microbiota field is rapidly evolving as new scientific information emerges each week, alongside clinical results being generated by innovations and the constant founding of new start-ups. 

“New quantitative biology technologies, such as large throughput sequencing, management of big data, synthetic biology and epigenetics, have unveiled the diverse functionalities of bacteria. The microbiome has become a metabolic organ in its own right. Deconvoluting these myriad functions is at reach and will be key to creating successful microbiome products,” argues Catsicas.

Meanwhile, Martha Carlin, CEO of the BioCollective, underlines the role of using computational models to predict how substrates related to immunity interacts. These can then be used in comparison to data gathered in a laboratory. However, she notes that it is necessary to have the entire genome of the organism as it is not possible to just use annotations in public databases. 

Making headway
Food companies are currently leading the gut-related field as they have long been active in the digestion function of the microbiome, De Cremoux continues. “They are also knowledgeable in fermentation, fermented products, as well as in living organisms, especially in dairy products.”The food industry is leading the gut-related field, but medical players are progressing quickly.

Indeed, Gil Horsky, Director of Innovation at SnackFutures (a Mondelēz innovation hub), highlights that the company is very interested in the gut health space. “Our first investment was with Uplift Food, which takes the benefits of gut health into snacking,” he notes when highlighting how snacking is expanding into wellness. 

“However, pharma and medical players are progressing very quickly. They invest massively in building private well-annotated cohorts. They are also collecting feces samples in clinical trials, even when the trials are not related to microbiome-related drugs,” adds De Cremoux.

Only a few decades ago, bacteria were mostly associated with infections, with Catsicas noting that there was a perception that the only “good” bacteria were dead bacteria. “Today, we know that bacteria and other microbes are essential ‘symbiotic passengers,’ likely to play an important role in maintaining health and treating diseases.”

“Looking forward, large clusters of bacteria will be replaced by smaller groups of species missing in individual patients. This opens the door to realistic and feasible personalized treatments of using ‘bugs as drugs.’ Also, synthetic replicas of bacteria metabolites or drugs from bugs will be a new generation of therapeutic agents,” he predicts. 

However, De Cremoux highlights that there is a generation gap, with Millennials and teenagers having higher levels of awareness. “They are educated both in schools and on the internet and are often more knowledgeable than their parents in that field. When purchasing food, older adults assess taste, pleasure, composition, calorie, sugar and fat. Meanwhile, Millennials and teenagers are paying more attention to sustainability, naturality and microbiome-friendly characteristics,” she concludes.

By Katherine Durrell