Bioiberica launches API to treat under-active thyroid
Life science company Bioiberica has launched a natural thyroid active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) for the treatment of hypothyroidism.
Hypothyroidism is a common condition of thyroid hormone deficiency that is thought to affect around 5% of people in Europe. Also known as an under-active thyroid, the condition causes the body’s natural functions to slow down and controls how a person’s heart beats and how quickly they digest food.
Patients with hypothyroidism are usually treated with thyroid hormone replacement via levothyroxine - a synthetic medicine used to treat the condition. However, it’s believed that 5-10% of patients treated with levothyroxine exhibit persistent symptoms such as fatigue, weight gain and depression despite having normal thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels.
Bioiberica’s latest natural origin treatment replaces or supplements the hormones that are ineffectively produced by the human thyroid gland, offering patients experiencing adverse symptoms another treatment option.
Javier Velasco-Alvarez, R&D director at Bioiberica, said: “There is a clear subset of patients suffering from hypothyroidism with persistent symptoms despite following a standard synthetic thyroid treatment. Our natural thyroid API, extracted from porcine thyroid glands, targets this unmet need. It contains the hormones - tetraiodothyronine, also known as thyroxine or T4, and triiodothyronine, otherwise known as liothyronine or T3 – that are naturally produced by the thyroid gland. Scientific evidence shows that thyroid API is an effective treatment from a natural origin.”
Jaume Reguant, Healthcare director at Bioiberica, added: “The development of our new thyroid API is the direct result of collaborative partnership with a key player in the pharmaceutical market. By combining our partner’s knowledge with our leading expertise in the identification and manufacture of specific biomolecules, we have successfully developed a solution that looks to address one of today’s many healthcare challenges.”
“Above all else, we believe that collaboration and shared expertise is key to innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. The development of our new thyroid API is just one example of how such partnerships can help us explore new horizons and activate the innovation of novel pharma solutions. It’s for this reason that we are actively seeking partners to investigate new opportunities in glycosaminoglycans, complex lipids, proteins and bioactive peptides of non-recombinant origin,” Reguant continued.