Company Introduction

Exopharm is a clincial-stage Australian biotechnology company using exosomes (extracellular vesicles (EVs)) from cells to generate a new class of transformative medicines. The company’s proprietary EV engineering technologies enable improved loading of nucleic acid medicines into EVs, and allow EVs to be directed towards selected cell types. Together with its LEAP technology, which allows large-scale and economical isolation of exosomes, Exopharm is using combinations of its engneering technologies to develop a pipeline of EEV products for a range of clinical applications, including neurological diseases, infectious diseases, cancer and fibrosis.

Brief description of main products or services 

Exopharm is developing extracellular vesicles (EVs) as therapeutics. The company has two exclusive proprietary technologies that extend the utility of EVs into engineered EV medicines (EEVs): the LOAD technology which improves the loading of nucleic acids into EVs and the EVPS technology which allows EVs to be directed towards certain cell types by addition of custom specific proteins on their surface. Exopharm uses combinations of LOAD and EVPS to develop pipeline of EEV products aimed at treating a wide scope of medical problems including neurological diseases, infectious diseases, cancer, and fibrosis. Exopharm’s EEV pipeline products include Fortrexo for combating viral infections and Cognevo for the delivery of drugs to the central nervous system.
 
In addition to this, Exopharm is developing naïve EVs (NEVs) from adult stem cells and platelets. Exopharm is the first company to have completed a phase 1 clinical trial in the field of naïve EVs with its study with allogeneic platelet derived EVs.
 
While EVs are produced readily by cultured stem cells, the development of EVs as medicines has been hampered by the challenge of purifying EVs. Exopharm owns a purification technology called Ligand-based Exosome Affinity Purification (LEAP). LEAP Technology and associated manufacturing know-how places Exopharm as a global leader in this emerging field.