Digna Biotech, business of biotechnology created to commercialize the patents resulting from the research of the CIMA (research center Applied Medicine) of the University of Navarra, has created in Pamplona a European Platform for the study of Scleroderma with important experts worldwide. The shareholders of Digna Biotech include, among other entities and companies, the Government of Navarra through the public company Sodena and Caja Navarra, through Corporación Empresarial CAN.

The sessions at work were attended, among others, by Dr. Thomas Krieg, head of department of Dermatology at the University of Cologne; Mario del Rosso, from department of Pathology and Experimental Oncology at the University of Florence; and Voon Ong, from department of Rheumatology at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

Also participating were national experts of international prestige such as José Luis Pablos, from the Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid; Federico Díaz González, from department of Rheumatology at the University Hospital of Santa Cruz de Tenerife; and Francisco Borrás-Cuesta, from CIMA.

Scleroderma is a chronic skin disease that affects about 2,000 people in Spain. It is uncommon (it is estimated that it could affect between 37,000-72,000 people in the EU) and this leave incidence on the population hinders the research of new treatments for the disease.

Fibrosis of the skin, blood vessels and internal organs

It is characterized by fibrosis of the skin, blood vessels and internal organs such as the lung. Currently, there is no treatment that cures the disease; there are only symptomatic treatments of dubious efficacy.

Digna Biotech's general director , Pablo Ortiz, explained that "one of the objectives of the European platform or consortium created this week in Navarra has been to analyze the latest therapeutic novelties that have appeared in the treatment of the aforementioned disease, among which p144, a TGF-(1) inhibitor (Transforming Growth Factor beta) developed and patented by Digna Biotech, stands out". It is believed that the excess of TGF-(1) may be one of the factors core topic in the development of this disease.

Digna Biotech is a biotechnology company business , with fiscal domicile in Navarra. Its mission statement is to develop at preclinical, clinical and commercial level the intellectual property generated by the CIMA, one of the main private biomedical research centers in Europe with more than 300 active researchers.