GliaPharm is a Swiss biotechnology company that develops treatments for neurological and psychiatric disorders.

GliaPharm’s innovative therapeutic approach is to target glial cells, the ‘support cells’ of neurons, to sustain their function and survival, and enhance brain metabolism in pathological conditions. We aim at developing new drugs that target glia-mediated pathways as agents for neuroprotection and maintenance of cognitive functions.

GliaPharm is a Swiss biotechnology company that develops innovative approaches to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders by targeting glial cells in the brain, a type of cell that is critical for neuroprotection and brain metabolism.

GliaPharm was created in 2016 as a spinoff company of three decades of research performed in the laboratory of Prof. Pierre Magistretti at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland), a leading research laboratory in the field of brain metabolism and glial cell biology.

In 2017, GliaPharm has established its laboratory at the Campus Biotech in Geneva, Switzerland.

Through its in-house R&D laboratory and network with selective partners, GliaPharm provides the necessary platform to develop clinical applications through mode of actions targeting glial cells.

GliaPharm’s pioneering approach is to stimulate the neuroprotective action of glial cells to treat certain types of neurological and psychiatric disorders. These pathologies, which all share similar glial and metabolic dysfunctions, include the orphan neurometabolic disease GLUT1 deficiency syndrome (GLUT-DS, also known as De Vivo disease), Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and depression.

While the importance of glial cells has been overlooked in drug development so far, it is now clear that these cells play a key role in sustaining brain function and neuroprotection. Targeting glial cells hence represents an innovative approach for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders based on strong scientific evidence.

GliaPharm has established a proprietary drug discovery platform, GliaX™, centered on glial cells activity and brain metabolism. Through this platform, the company is developing its pipeline program to establish a new class of agents for neuroprotection and maintenance of cognitive functions. GliaX™ also serves collaboration with academic and industrial partners.