Gut microbiota research fuels drug innovation

Gut microbiota research is opening up fresh opportunities for innovative drug discovery and health product innovation, experts said recently in Beijing, as China steps up efforts to foster biopharmaceutical innovation.

Growing evidence shows that gut microbes are closely linked to a broad range of diseases, creating new room for pharmaceutical innovation and industrial upgrading, said Jiang Jiandong, head of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences' institute of pharmaceutical research.

Speaking recently at a forum on microbiome ecology and health in Beijing via video, Jiang said nearly 15 years of research has found close ties between gut microbiota and metabolic disorders, cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases and cancer.

"Some drugs do not need to be absorbed into the bloodstream first. They can act in the gut through microbiota, while some poorly absorbed drugs may be transformed by gut microbes into compounds that are beneficial to the human body and generate therapeutic effects," he said.

Jiang said research institutions are seeking to make better use of scientific platforms to translate such findings into more drug candidates, innovative medicines and health products, in support of the Healthy China initiative.

The push comes as China places greater emphasis on innovation-driven growth in the pharmaceutical sector and on improving the efficiency of turning laboratory breakthroughs into commercial outcomes.

Microbiome research is also offering new insights into the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine, experts said.

Wang Yan, director of the institute's department of drug metabolism, said gut microbes may help explain why some orally administered medicines show low absorption but strong clinical efficacy.

"Before entering the bloodstream, oral drugs first come into contact with gut microbes, which can transform drug structures and change their efficacy, pharmacokinetic properties and even toxicity," Wang said.

Yet major bottlenecks remain in the industrial translation of microbiome research. Ji Ming, general manager of the National Engineering Research Center for New Drug Development, said challenges remain, including a shortage of proprietary bacterial strains, incomplete evaluation standards and instability in pilot-scale production.

He said the center is exploring the integration of multi-omics and artificial intelligence to build microbiome models, interaction databases and translational platforms, with the aim of improving research efficiency, strengthening pilot-scale capacity and supporting industrial transformation.