Overview
Axial Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company harnessing the link between the human gut microbiome and the Central Nervous System (CNS) to develop a new class of therapeutics to improve the quality of life for people with CNS diseases and disorders. Scientific co-founder Sarkis K. Mazmanian, Ph.D., and researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) discovered a novel causal-link between the gut microbiome and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Axial’s scientific co-founder has demonstrated that oral treatment of a mouse model of ASD with a human commensal bacterial therapy corrects gut permeability, restores a healthy microbial composition and ameliorates core behavioral symptoms of ASD. In a PD mouse model, gut bacteria were shown to promote hallmark disease processes including inflammation of the nervous system and motor dysfunction. The findings suggest that targeting the gut microbiome may provide a new approach for diagnosing and treating ASD and PD. Axial is at the forefront of scientific research validating how alterations and irregularities in the gut microbiome influence CNS functions such as emotions, communication and motor and autonomic function. Axial’s focus on the microbiome gut-brain axis is a transformational shift from traditional approaches to treating neurological conditions. By identifying bacterial and their products in the gut that are linked to the pathology, progression and symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases and neurodevelopmental disorders, Axial is able to validate “druggable” therapeutic targets in the gut microbiome. Based on these new classes of targets, Axial focuses on developing small molecule therapies with defined mechanisms of action that mitigate the impact of bacteria and their products. Axial’s localized, gut-targeted small molecule approach represents an evolution in microbiome-inspired therapeutics for neurological conditions.