The sea of Sagres may be on the verge of providing the world with a more effective and much less aggressive analgesic for chronic pain. THE Sea4Us company, headquartered in this town in the municipality of Vila do Bispo, won the award SME Instruments of the Horizon 2020 program of the European Commission, in the amount of 50 thousand euros, and with this it gained the possibility of deepening the development of a medicine to alleviate those who constantly feel pain, and that is an alternative to morphine and opioids.
O “Sea4Pain” is the main project of the company based in Sagres and is closely linked to the Costa Vicentina. It is there that lives the sponge that supplied the main compound of the medicine that earned Sea4Us this award for European Small and Medium Enterprises that innovate and have ideas with high potential.
«This award – despite the 50 thousand euros also being useful – gives us, above all, great prestige, because there is a lot, a lot of competition», considered Pedro Lima, co-founder and general director of the company, in an interview with Sul Informação.
In addition to the 50 euros that it will already, guaranteed, receive, Sea4Us also gained “access to many services that the European Commission has. We will have access to coaching, counseling and training to be able to leverage the project, to apply for a second phase. And then, it's already a value above one million euros and opens up other horizons. This first phase serves, essentially, to make the business plan and the feasibility study of the project, which can now have that impulse».
All thanks to the analgesic for chronic pain that the company is already developing, which aims to find "an alternative to morphine and opioids", that the company's co-founder, who graduated in Marine Biology at the University of Algarve, and more Later, he earned a doctorate in neurophysiology in the UK, he believes that "it will work much better and that it will have no expected side effects".
The focus of “Sea4Pain” is to find an alternative therapy for chronic pain, which, in addition to being a symptom associated with certain serious illnesses, may be, in itself, a pathology. Currently, what is available on the market for this type of pain are opioids, such as morphine, and medications with strong associated side effects.
«Chronic pain is continuous, constant pain, which sometimes lasts for the rest of your life. It comes from a large number of pathologies: diabetic neuropathy, people who have lost limbs, accidents, fibromyalgia, large gangrene, severe back pain and cancer pain and induced by chemotherapy», he framed.
This condition “may develop into a disease that has an identity in itself”. Many times, Pedro explained to the Sul Informação, «we can even solve the problem that caused the pain, originally, but then, as it was there for a long time – 3 or 6 months, it depends on the author -, the nervous system, which usually compensates for the pain, is spoiled forever ».
A "classic example" is the phantom pain experienced by people who have lost limbs. Also, many people who have undergone chemotherapy end up developing chronic pain, "regardless of having cured the cancer."
“More than one in five people in the world suffer from some form of chronic pain. It's a lot of people!", says the co-founder of Sea4Us, who speaks of a "worldwide scourge" that brings loss of quality of life.
“There are serious corporate issues. Men, for example, are often embarrassed to admit it. There are those who cannot concentrate, which results in low profitability. Some, such as headaches, are the cause of a large percentage of suicides», he illustrated.
The relationship of this potential revolution in chronic pain medications with the seas of Sagres is very intimate. «The analgesic is made from a compound of marine origin, obtained in the seas of Sagres, where we have our thirst and the great reason for being based there. We have other projects in pipeline that come from our richness and our biodiversity which, in my opinion, has its greatest exponent there on the Costa Vicentina».
«I have been a diver for many years. Obviously, Sagres doesn't have those spectacular things that the Azores have, like whales and the like, but in terms of encrusting fauna, small animals and invertebrates, the wealth is very great. And this is what interests us: anemones, cnidarians, jellyfish and sponges», added Pedro Lima.
At issue, the fact that these animals "use compounds to defend themselves", namely poisons, "which are neurotoxic and, if we manage to degrade and decompose them, can hide very important things, such as analgesics, anesthetics, treatments for cancer pain , anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, etc.».
Basically, it is the marriage between neurophysiology, the area to which he is currently most connected (he is the coordinator of a research center in this area at Nova Medical School), and marine biology – «I am a marine biologist by training and at heart» – that Sea4Us was born.
The principles and active substances used by the pharmaceutical industry have been essentially the same for a long time, which leads Pedro Lima (and many who work in this sector) to consider that it is necessary to find “a new chemistry”. This “can be discovered at sea and that is the mission we propose”.
“The sea is full of neuroactive substances, a dazzling ecochemical richness, developed over a long time. And it is not accessible to human ingenuity, precisely because it is the result of this adaptation of millions and millions of years», he believes.
The development of this analgesic is taking place under the umbrella of the company's “Drug Discovery and Development Platform”, “a platform that applies new biotechnology approaches to exploit compounds derived from the sea for the development of new pharmaceutical products”.
“We are looking for substances that are relevant in the treatment of diseases that are an unsolved global problem today. We have a line of research with cancer, another with autoimmune diseases, we also have several types of pain», he told the Sul Informação the person responsible for the company.
Bearing in mind that Pedro Lima and other members of the Sea4Us team are neurophysiologists, they specialize “in neuroactive substances. We want to develop analgesics, medicines for autoimmune diseases related to the nerves, among others».
The most advanced project is “Sea4Pain”. The analgesic that Sea4Us developed has already been tested in the laboratory, in models, but also in guinea pigs, in this case mice, with success. But there is always "a risk", as this does not mean that it works the same in humans, "although everything indicates that it does".
“What we are doing now is to outline a battery of very expensive tests, to reach the authorities and prove that the drug is safe for humans”, explained Pedro Lima.
The co-founder of the Algarve company confessed to our newspaper that the process until obtaining authorization to test a drug on humans is “very extensive, exhausting and very expensive (laughs). It is a very time-consuming path that requires a lot of investment. On average, a drug takes 12 years to enter the market. We have only a few years of existence, so it will take some time».
But Pedro Lima believes that the day when the next step can be taken and this therapy validated for humans will come and shows a deep belief that it will be something beneficial. “The first person to be injected will be me, because I truly believe it will work. Everything leads me to believe that. If it works for me, no one will ever stop us again», he said.
Although the company's business model envisages the sale of the developed product, which is already being patented, in a large-scale pre-production phase, «probably right after the first phase of human testing», taking into account the costs involved, Sea4Us wants to take its effort as far as possible to ensure "that the origin of the Portuguese sea and Sagres is not lost, that it is well identified, and that this does not fall into the drawer of any multinational".
The medicines developed by Sea4Us are based on poisons or toxins produced by animals, but the intention is not to extract the compounds used from living beings, but to replicate them with laboratory processes, through biotechnology.
“Our idea is not to go overboard and withdraw, withdraw, withdraw. We observe nature and take from there sufficient quantities, but small, to purify, to arrive at the pure compost, so that we can replicate it with non-invasive and non-polluting methods», he explained to Sul Informação.
The co-founder of Sea4Us does not hide his desire to one day be able to settle permanently in the town of Sagres, where the company's headquarters are located, but where “prospecting, identification and primary treatment is also carried out. » of compounds that are used in medicines, in a laboratory that has a protocol with the University of Algarve. «It is a center from which this wealth explodes into a science network»
This network, «the spin moves scientific-technological', spreads over several places. Sea4Us works together with Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where Pedro Lima coordinates a research center. “We have a very good protocol with Nova Medical School. We use the laboratories and equipment, giving in exchange theses, innovation and a revenue. We also have collaborations with the University of Minho, the University of Lisbon and some foreign ones, such as Aberdeen (Scotland), Paris and Norway».
Also involved in this project is «a group of investors who have shown great courage, namely the pharmaceutical company Ben, the company that makes Benuron. He is one of about ten investors who have helped us in this first phase».
The co-founder of Sea4Us has no problem revealing details of the project, not even the animals used in the research being carried out – the sponges – as he “would have to live many years to be able to explore a tiny percentage of what exists there », which leads him to consider that «the more competition, the better».
“I hope we can make a difference in this world and that we can alleviate the pain of so many millions of people”, summarized Pedro Lima.
Sea4Us was one of the four Portuguese companies to be awarded in the last wave of the European Commission SME Instruments. “We had tried before and had even crossed the threshold for funding, but there was not enough money for everyone. This mirrors how competitive it is. We had already obtained two seals of excellence. Before, the assessment had been very good. In this case, it was excellent, we went far beyond the threshold», the director of this company told our newspaper.
Previously, this prize had already been awarded to two companies in the Algarve, Gyrad and Sparos, which were both created following the contest Ideias em Caixa from CRIA – Division of Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer of the University of Algarve.
Photos: Sea4Us
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