Seres Therapeutics, Inc. announced that it will present new data from its SER-109 Phase 3 ECOSPOR III clinical study that confirm the intended pharmacological properties of this investigational microbiome therapeutic for recurrent C. difficile infection. The data presentation, entitled “Microbiome therapeutics to treat bacterial infections and inflammatory disease,” will take place virtually at the Keystone Symposium Harnessing the Microbiome for Disease Prevention and Therapyon January 20, 2021. The new study data examined the pharmacokinetics following SER-109 dosing. The data demonstrate that SER-109 administration resultedin the rapid engraftment of SER-109-derived bacterial species into the gastrointestinal tract as soon as one week following dosing and that this engraftment was maintained at subsequent timepoints evaluated, including atthe eight-week timepoint corresponding to the study’s primary endpoint. The company utilized advanced microbiome biomarker analytics and proprietary genomic reference datasets to identify, at a bacterial species resolution level, the gastrointestinal microbiome signatures associated with SER-109 engraftment. SER-109 administration also resulted in modulation of the gastrointestinal metabolic landscape. Notably, data demonstrated a significant decrease in primary bile acids and an increase in secondary bile acids. Published research and preclinical studies conducted by the company have demonstrated that primary bile acids support germination of C. difficile spores that are the source of disease recurrence. In contrast, secondary bile acids have been reported to inhibit the growth of C. difficile.