Merger milestones: Cosciens Biopharma outlines future focus and strategy

25 Sep 2024 --- Specialty biopharmaceutical, cosmeceutical, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical ingredients producer, Cosciens Biopharma reveals substantial progress toward its merger integration with biopharmaceutical player, Ceapro. The update includes planned changes to its management team, advancements across its current businesses and reports on its latest innovations.

“With the initial integration efforts now well underway, I believe now is the ideal time for the next generation of leaders to make their mark on the future of Cosciens Biopharma,” says the company’s president and CEO, Gilles Gagnon.

Gagnon explains that there are specific reasons for the creation of Cosciens Biopharma and the collaboration between Aeterna Zentaris — now Cosciens Biopharma — and Ceapro. The merger aims to expand the revenue base, product offerings and pipeline.

This strategy involves evaluating the joint product portfolio to balance near-term revenue generators with potentially higher-reward long-term products, diversifying risks, optimizing administrative costs, focusing capital on promising products and programs and recruiting leadership talent to advance the company’s strategic goals and growth.

“The first two goals will take time to achieve — we want to ensure that we are looking at comprehensive data and market information when making key product-related decisions,” Gagnon reveals. “We also want to ensure that the next president and CEO will have a voice in key decisions as they chart the future direction of Cosciens Biopharma.”

Future moves

The company says it has begun and is progressing with cost-cutting strategies, which include downsizing the combined business by removing several managerial and technical roles. Concurrently, the company is curtailing expenditure on specific programs until the completion of data reviews.

In the meantime, Cosciens Biopharma says it plans to continue its focus on key pharmaceutical and nutraceutical ingredients such as its yeast beta glucan (YBG) anti-fibrotic product.

The company states that pre-clinical studies over the past four years show that PGX (pressurized gas expanded technology)-processed yeast beta glucan (PGX-YBG) is inhalable and can safely reprogram macrophages to potentially treat fibrotic diseases like lung fibrosis in models.

Additionally, the company reveals that construction in its main PGX facility in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is complete, including the installation and commissioning of the PGX Scale-Up 50 Liters Vessel. Meanwhile, its Austrian Natex facility’s PGX Scale-Up 100 Liters Vessel project is on schedule.

Nutra- and cosmeceutical concentration

In its cosmeceuticals range, Cosciens Biopharma highlights its avenanthramides (AVA) and oat beta glucan (OBG) solution for wound healing.

At the 2024 American Society for Nutrition Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, US, the scientific director of the Angiogenesis Foundation presented positive pre-clinical data showing that AVA and OBG products enhance healing speed and quality.

The company will also continue its focus on its immunity-boosting YBG application. The solution is a recently completed YBG powder formulation. Validation trials using YBG successfully produced powder formulations, with plans to sell the nutraceutical in capsule form.

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