The CAESAR IBD Project: Developing Therapeutic Antibodies for Pets

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in dogs is a common but poorly managed chronic condition causing immense emotional and financial distress to pet owners. Based on the positive results of antibodies to treat IBD in humans they have been proposed for dogs. However, instead of investigating a new drug specific for them some antibodies developed for other purposes and species has been adapted (petization), which can trigger immune responses in pets, yielding ineffective therapies and causing further health complications. At Adivo we have developed and validated CAESAR platform, which is the first fully canine phage-display library to generate therapeutic antibodies specific for dogs overcoming the limitations of current petization techniques. Now we aim to use this technology to develop and validate an effective drug to treat IBD in dogs. This project will bring a cumulative profit of 41 M in the first five years of commercialization, an ROI of 14 and to hire over 15 professionals.