Research & Development
Research is a significant aspect of Kedrion’s activities. Each stage of product development – from basic research to pre-clinical and clinical trials, to pharmacovigilance ongoing monitoring of product use and efficacy – contributes to the same objective: encouraging innovation so as to improve, one step at a time, how we serve patients worldwide.
Our commitment to this objective is very strong, especially in relation to extremely rare diseases for which there is still no treatment. Meeting this need is both a responsibility and a priority for us.
Kedrion is constantly seeking to create new products and improve existing ones – which requires careful and extensive clinical studies, including observational studies – as well as to increase efficiency and capacity of our manufacturing sites.
Open Innovation
The solid and long-standing cooperation that, over the years, we have established with doctors, researchers, public and private entities, and national and international bodies, proves just how good for research the sharing of knowledge and skills actually is.
We like to imagine ourselves as a bridge: between state-of-the art projects and production activities, between the world of research and industry, between our company and local businesses and associations.
The history of Kedrion Biopharma is a testimony to our close relationship with the territory in which we operate and with local communities, with whom we have been cooperating for many years with a view to promoting research and innovation.
True to this vision, we have decided to expand and consolidate this commitment by initiating a real strategic path of “open innovation”. This path is aimed at promoting a continuous and active exchange of ideas, experience and expertise with doctors, researchers, universities, start-ups, public and private agencies, and patient organizations in order to gather and evaluate the most innovative ideas and projects proposed by our local partners, and promoting their implementation on an industrial scale.
Find out more about our “open innovation” projects here.
Promoting innovation means improving the quality of patients’ lives.
Orphan Drugs
There are many diseases and disorders which are life-threatening or chronically debilitating but which affect very few people. Some of these are referred to as “orphan diseases” because there is little economic incentive to research and develop treatment for them. Existing drugs or those being developed to treat these disorders have come to be known as “orphan drugs”.
Kedrion commits to fighting against rare diseases and aspires to creating value in the field of orphan drugs.
Kedrion takes special interest in the development of orphan drugs because through our work we aim to provide relief from rare or extremely rare diseases.
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Within this specific scope Kedrion is developing, plasma-derived Plasminogen eye drops for the treatment of Ligneous Conjunctivitis in patients affected by Type 1 Plasminogen Deficiency; this little-known disease is thought to affect 1 in every 1.6 million people. Kedrion’s efforts have been acknowledged both by the French Healthcare Authorities, who have authorized the use of Plasminogen on an individual request basis (through a program called A.T.U.), and by the Italian AIFA, which has authorized the use of our Plasminogen and its reimbursement – in accordance with the 648/96 law – for all patients affected by Ligneous Conjunctivitis.
Furthermore following the acquisition of Prometic in Canada, Kedrion has also made available, in the USA only for the time being, an intravenous Plasminogen for the congenital deficiency of this protein which has received FDA approval.
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Kedrion will consider granting “Early Access” to an Investigational Medicinal Product – i.e. to an investigational drug outside of a clinical trial and in compliance with applicable laws and regulations – to those patients affected by serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions for whom no approved effective therapies with specific indication are commercially available in the specific country, and participation in an on-going clinical trial is not an option.
Health Care Professionals (HCPs) treating patients who want to know more about this program can click on this link.