Opsona gets research boost

OPSONA Therapeutics is set to announce a major link-up with a multinational drugs company that will facilitate significant medical research in an area of auto-immune diseases.

Already the group, which is just over a year old, is close to clinically testing a new drug to combat multiple sclerosis. It is radical in terms of modern medicine, said Mark Heffernan, group chief executive, whose company was among the 75 start-ups announced yesterday by Enterprise Ireland.

“We are looking at a sub-set of immune cells called T-regulatory cells and we are working on how to turn those on,” he said.