Project: Inhaled Nanocarriers with Antisense Therapy for Lung Fibrosis

Acronym	INAT (Reference Number: EURONANOMED2017-181)
Duration	01/07/2018
Project Topic	Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a rare, not curable, chronic lung disease. INAT project aims to develop a novel nanocarrier-based therapy, to be delivered locally and non-invasively via aerosols into the lungs to improve its therapeutic index (high efficacy, low side effects). This nanomedicine combines: 1/ an innovative peptide-based nanocarrier patented by Div’incell (Partner 5), which is biodegradable, has a long half-life in biological fluids, and allows for effective oligonucleotide transfer into cell, and 2/ a 3rd-generation antisense oligonucleotide (ASO3) that will be developed using the unique design and screening platform of Secarna Pharmaceuticals (Partner 4), to target an original profibrosis mediator discovered by Partner 1. The nanomedicine will be formulated for inhalation in humans using clinically relevant nebulizers (Task 1). To establish a proof of concept (Tasks 2 & 3), nanomedicine aerosols will be delivered to physiologically relevant IPF models using the efficient, dose-controlled exposure methods developed by Partner 2, both 1/ in vitro technology for aerosolized drug delivery to expose pulmonary primary mesenchymal and epithelial cells in monolayers and co-cultured at the air-liquid interface to mimic lung tissue and 2/ in vivo system for dose-controlled aerosol delivery to the lungs of intubated healthy and diseased mice. INAT will also specifically address toxicity of the nanomedicine, its fate and efficacy in both healthy animals and bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis mouse model, the preclinical reference model for IPF. The INAT consortium combines the efforts of 3 academic labs with complementary expertise in aerosolized medicine and 2 industry partners, whose platform technologies will be merged. This will lead to a novel nanomedicine for inhalation in humans and to achieve its robust preclinical evaluation for the treatment of IPF. Contributions of pulmonologists specialized in IPF will help to transfer the results to the clinics.
Network	EuroNanoMed III
Call	Joint Transnational Call for Proposals (2017) for “European Innovative Research & Technological Development Projects in Nanomedicine”

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	Université François Rabelais de Tours	Coordinator	France
2	Helmholtz Zentrum München – HMGU	Partner	Germany
3	Université catholique de Louvain	Partner	Belgium
4	DIV'INCELL	Partner	France
5	Secarna Parmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG	Partner	Germany