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BioLineRx Therapy BL – 7010 Treats Celiac Disease & Gluten Sensitivity
BioLineRx Ltd, a biopharmaceutical development company, was invited to deliver an oral presentation at the recent 2013 National Education Conference & Gluten-Free Expo, the Celiac Disease Foundation’s annual conference, in Pasadena, California.
Leah Klapper, Ph.D., General Manager, BioLine Innovations Jerusalem, presented BioLineRx’s therapy, BL-7010, for the treatment of celiac, as part of a session entitled Breaking Therapies Beyond the Gluten-Free Diet.
BL-7010 will be presented at the Digestive Disease Week 2013 conference, the world’s largest gathering of physicians and researchers in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery, to be held on May 18-21, 2013 in Orlando, Florida.
About BL-7010
BL-7010 is a non-absorbable, orally administered therapy intended for the treatment of celiac disease and gluten sensitivity. The treatment bonds with gliadins, the immunogenic peptides present in gluten that cause celiac disease. By sequestering gliadins, BL-7010 effectively masks them from enzymatic degradation and prevents the formation of immunogenic peptides, which trigger the immune system in the digestive tract. In other words, BL-7010 bonds with gliadin to create a molecule that the body does not recognize as digestible. This stops the body from digesting and absorbing gliadin.
The BL-7010-gliadin complex is eventually excreted from the digestive tract and not absorbed into the blood. Since the gliadin is not absorbed, the immune reactions that would normally respond to partially digesting gliadin entering the body are reduced.
The safety and efficacy of BL-7010 was demonstrated in pre-clinical studies. BL-7010 was invented by Prof. Jean-Christophe Leroux from the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland and is being developed by BioLineRx under a worldwide exclusive license agreement with Univalor.
About Celiac Disease and Gluten Sensitivity
Celiac disease is a chronic, autoimmune, inflammatory disease of the small intestine characterized by damage to the lining of the small intestine and typically leads to dyspepsia, malabsorption and a variety of other symptoms. It occurs in genetically predisposed individuals and is caused by an immunological reaction to gluten, found in wheat, barley, rye and oats. Estimates suggest that 1% of the world’s population is affected by celiac disease, and prevalence is expected to increase dramatically with improved diagnosis and awareness of the disease. Today there are no pharmacological agents approved for celiac disease and the only treatment option is a life-long, strict, gluten-free diet, which is difficult to maintain both due to food contamination with gluten, as well as eating habits in a social setting. Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a common name for cases of gluten reactions in which neither allergic nor autoimmune mechanisms characteristic of celiac disease are involved or can be identified.
About BioLineRx
BioLineRx is a publicly-traded biopharmaceutical development company. BioLineRx is dedicated to building a portfolio of products for unmet medical needs or with advantages over currently available therapies.
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Author Information: John Libonati, Florida
Publisher, Glutenfreeworks.com.
Editor & Publisher, Recognizing Celiac Disease.
John can be reached by e-mail here.
