Maureen Deehan, CEO of Vivtex, commented: “We are delighted to enter this new collaboration with Astellas Pharma. Over the past few years, Vivtex has worked productively with multiple leading pharma and biotech companies to apply its GI-ORIS™ platform to the challenge of improving drug oral bioavailability and thereby creating valuable new product opportunities and potential benefits to patients.”

Vivtex scientists demonstrated the ability and potential of the GI-ORIS™ platform to expedite the development of new orally available biologic drugs in a 2020 study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering (ref.1). The study showed how GI-ORIS™ can be applied to accurately model (with near-perfect predictability) the absorption of drug molecules in the small intestine, enabling Vivtex to develop novel oral formulations and delivery methodologies, previously not possible for biologic medicines based on the limitations of available technologies. Vivtex has secured a worldwide, exclusive license from MIT for this foundational technology and its applications for the development of novel oral biologic therapies.