In-depth Interview with AND BioPharma, winner of the 2019 Animal Health Presentations

Please introduce yourself and ALCEDIAG. How your company is born?

Peter Jens: A.N.D. stands for As Nature Does. The patented broad biological principle of DNA self toxicity was the reason why we established the company. By applying random fragmented self DNA on the same organism one inhibits the growth of a population. We use this to develop novel anti-helminth, anti-invectives and skin anti-bacterials that -without side effects- are species specific and may balance healthy microbiomes. Our sister company AND Agri focusses itself on agricultural solutions. Our team is a very diverse mix of cultures, backgrounds and aptitudes, but all crazy about disruptive innovations.

Why did you apply to the Pitch Sessions? What was your expectations?

P. J.: At this phase of the company development we need outsiders looking in and ask hard questions. Especially outside the scientific and academic community. We learn from it and cn adapt. And even find partners to work with. We did not have high expectations as the first three years most people we met laughed at us: “DNA being toxic? Ridiculous!”, but now science is discovering that there is an enormous amount of environmental DNA in the air that we breathe, the water we drink and the soils we grow our food in. And researchers noticed that that environmental does not only signify something, it dóes something too!.

What did this victory as the Most Innovative Animal Health Project bring to you and to AND BioPharma?

P. J.: It brought us a few good interested parties from the animal health, but we could not yet explain exactly how we would produce those exDNA fragments in mass, fit for commercial livestock purposes. Now that we published our “chimeric patent’ application https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2020167128&tab=PCTBIBLIO parties know how we can use all types of natural libraries to get DNA fragments onto the targets. What we learned is that many pharma applications are focused on time/kill and dosage/kill relations. As Nature Does works differently: It only pushes back pathogens back in their population size so that ecological mechanisms take over.

What’s next for AND BioPharma now?

P. J.: We are anxiously waiting for the third patent application to be published. For many it will be a shocker, but for some parties that followed us, it will be an “Aha erlebnis”. In a practical sense we hope to publish at BioFit our first evidence on how to stop the MRSA USA 300 strain infection by its own DNA (and some other news on natural libraries, of course. That is what the European industry is waiting for.