Oxford, UK, 3rd November 2022 - Sibelius Natural Products is delighted to announce that the Company has won funding from the Balvi philanthropic fund, established to support COVID research by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. This award will support continued development of the company’s Roman chamomile extract (Sibelius™: Chamomile) with a particular emphasis on applications in Long COVID.
Long COVID is a complex, multi-organ/multi-system disorder, which presents with numerous symptoms ranging from fatigue to increased risk of cardiometabolic pathologies, with large numbers of people suffering from this condition. For example, the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that approximately 2 million adults in the UK (3% of the population) have lingering symptoms from COVID-19.
Whilst a clear consensus on the underlying causes of Long COVID is yet to be established, pathological inflammation, especially within the vasculature, has been widely proposed as a key driving mechanism. Sibelius has been developing a Roman chamomile extract (Sibelius™: Chamomile) with potent anti-inflammatory activities that include reducing key inflammation markers in preclinical models of vascular cells, which suggests strong potential for the extract to counter a key driver of Long COVID.
Working together with Prof Mohamed Zaibi from The Institute of Biomedical and Biosciences Research at the University of Buckingham, the Balvi award will enable Sibelius to demonstrate the anti-inflammatory activities of Sibelius™: Chamomile in healthy humans, paving the way to future testing of the extract in Long COVID sufferers.
“We are really excited by the potential of Sibelius™: Chamomile, and this funding will help us to push forward with the extract in an area that we hope could have a significant impact on the quality of life for many people suffering the debilitating symptoms of Long COVID ” said Dr. Kieron Edwards, CSO at Sibelius.