i2O Therapeutics Announces Research Collaboration with Sanofi to Enable Oral Delivery of Nanobody-based Medicines

i2O Therapeutics, developers of a platform for oral delivery of traditionally injectable biological drugs, announced today a research collaboration with Sanofi to investigate the oral delivery of Sanofi’s Nanobody-based medicines, which are currently administered through intravenous or subcutaneous injections.

Nanobodies – proprietary therapeutic proteins based on camelid-derived immunoglobulin single variable domains – have potential uses in the treatment of a range of serious and life-threatening diseases and are being developed in many therapeutic areas including inflammation, hematology, immuno-oncology, oncology and rare diseases. The research collaboration between i2O Therapeutics and Sanofi will explore a new oral route of administering nanobodies.

“Our mission at i2O Therapeutics is to develop safe and effective oral formulations of therapies traditionally limited to injections and we are excited to partner with Sanofi to advance this mission,” said Ravi Srinivasan, co-founder and director of i2O Therapeutics.

“i2O’s ionic liquid platform opens new opportunities to orally deliver biologics, and nanobodies represent an exciting application of this platform,” said Samir Mitragotri, co-founder of i2O Therapeutics.

i2O Therapeutics announced seed funding in April 2020, which was led by Sanofi Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Sanofi, and JDRF T1D Fund. The company also announced a strategic investment from Colorcon Ventures, the corporate venture capital fund of Colorcon, Inc. in December 2020.