Our Story
Vertebrogenic Lumbar Back Pain (cLBP with Modic Type changes) is a highly debilitating condition that significantly affects the quality of life of millions of people, most of whom are not helped by existing treatments, which target symptoms rather than underlying pathology. The lack of effective treatment options for patients often results in long-term reliance on analgesics, such as opioids, to manage pain.
Research by Persica’s founders demonstrated that high-dose oral antibiotics delivered over 100 days showed significant reduction on pain.1 Persica is developing PP353, a groundbreaking and transformative treatment for vLBP. PP353 is a patented, targeted intradiscal antibiotic injection that is delivered directly to the site of infection. It is designed to achieve superior antibiotic disc exposure, with just two injections, thereby reducing systemic side-effects, improving patient compliance and antibiotic stewardship.
PP353 is a non-opioid, one-off treatment which addresses an underlying cause of vLBP, rather than just the symptoms.
Our Phase 1b study, the Modic trial, showed statistically significant and clinically meaningful reductions in pain and disability. We are now in discussions with regulators about advancing to registrational trials.
- Albert HB, Sorensen JS, Schiott Christensen B, Manniche C. Antibiotic treatment in patients with chronic low back pain and vertebral bone edema (Modic type 1 changes): a double-blind randomized clinical controlled trial of efficacy. Eur Spine J, 2013.
- Michael R. Lassen, Matthew Scarborough, Nigel Gilchrist et al. Intradiscal linezolid (PP353) treatment for chronic low back pain associated with Modic change type 1: an international, first-in-human, randomised, sham procedure-controlled, double-blind, phase 1b clinical trial