Seres Therapeutics Sells VOWST™ Rights To Nestlé In Major Deal

Seres Therapeutics, Inc., a prominent company specializing in live biotherapeutics, has finalized the sale of its VOWST business to Société des Produits Nestlé S.A. (“SPN”), a part of Nestlé Health Science. This follows the earlier announcement of the transaction. In addition to its commitment to advancing SER-155 in allo-HSCT, Seres Therapeutics plans to explore this program in other medically vulnerable groups at a heightened risk of bacterial bloodstream infections. 

These groups include patients with cancer-related neutropenia (such as those undergoing autologous HSCT and CAR-T therapy) and individuals receiving solid organ transplants. These areas present substantial unmet needs, severe infection consequences, and a significant financial burden on the healthcare system, highlighting potential commercial opportunities.

Furthermore, Seres is working on another proprietary live biotherapeutic, SER-147, aimed at enhancing clinical outcomes for patients with compromised chronic liver disease who are at high risk of bacterial infections. The company is actively seeking ways to maximize value creation and believes there are opportunities to pursue both internal clinical development and collaborative efforts, including partnerships, to assess its biotherapeutics across various target populations that could greatly benefit patients and generate significant commercial value.

Eric Shaff, President and CEO of Seres Therapeutics, said “We are pleased to complete the sale of VOWST to Nestlé Health Science, which strengthens our financial position and sharpens our focus on developing our novel platform in multiple medically vulnerable patient populations at high risk of life-threatening bacterial infections and associated negative clinical outcomes. 

The recently announced highly encouraging clinical results from our Phase 1b Cohort 2 study, demonstrating that SER-155 was associated with a significant reduction in both bloodstream infections and systemic antibiotic exposure, as well as a lower incidence of febrile neutropenia, as compared to placebo, in patients undergoing allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (allo-HSCT), reinforces our conviction in the potential of our cultivated live biotherapeutics platform to provide significant patient benefits and meaningful commercial opportunity. 

Mr. Shaff continued, “The resources provided by the VOWST transaction will support our plans to progress SER-155, including applying for Breakthrough Therapy designation, and additional biotherapeutic pipeline programs. We are emerging from this transaction a more streamlined organization, with our debt fully retired and an investment plan focused on advancing our promising pipeline programs. The Company’s headcount will decrease from approximately 200 to 100, principally due to the transition of manufacturing and quality team members from Seres to Nestlé Health Science, positioning the organization to efficiently progress our strategy. We want to thank all our colleagues for their contributions to Seres and to developing VOWST for patients. We look forward to working with Nestlé Health Science to ensure a smooth transition and wish them all the best as the stewards of VOWST moving forward.”