Periodontitis has traditionally been treated as a dental problem. If your gums bleed, become inflamed, or your teeth begin to loosen, the solution has typically involved repeated visits to the dentist or periodontist, along with deep cleaning procedures and surgery to manage the disease as it progresses.
But a growing body of research is changing that perspective.
Today, scientists increasingly recognise severe periodontitis as more than a disease of the mouth. It’s a chronic inflammatory condition driven by bacterial infection that may influence health throughout the body. We sat down with Denteric’s Chief Operating Officer, Larisa Chisholm, to talk about the challenge they are working to solve.
More than one billion people worldwide live with severe periodontitis, yet treatment options have changed little in decades.
Current care focuses on using antibiotics and painful mechanical removal of bacteria to manage the symptoms of the disease rather than specifically targeting its underlying cause. Patients often require repeated procedures to slow progression, but there are no approved therapies that address the toxic gingipains produced by bacteria that are driving chronic inflammation.
Denteric is taking a different approach.
GPV381, their lead therapy, targets the gingipains produced by Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis), the key bacterium responsible for severe periodontitis. Rather than simply treating damaged gums, the therapy is designed to stimulate the body’s immune response against the bacteria, reduce inflammation and help restore gum health in patients with existing disease.
The goal is not only to slow disease progression, but to change how periodontitis is treated by providing a disease modifying therapy.
Researchers now understand that the impact of periodontitis may not stop at the gums.
As P. gingivalis establishes chronic infection, it releases toxins known as gingipains that can enter the bloodstream and contribute to ongoing inflammation throughout the body.
This growing understanding has linked severe periodontitis with a number of chronic conditions, including cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.
While these relationships continue to be investigated, they point to a much bigger opportunity. For Larisa, that’s where Denteric’s real potential lies: “If we can treat the underlying infection, we’re not just improving oral health, we’re potentially reducing chronic inflammation that affects the rest of the body.”
That shift in thinking has changed how Denteric frames its technology. Rather than positioning itself as a dental company, it sees itself at the intersection of oral health, immunology and chronic inflammatory disease.
The company’s origins date back more than two decades to research conducted through Australia’s Cooperative Research Centre for Oral Health, led by Laureate Professor Eric Reynolds at the University of Melbourne.
Since then, Denteric has grown from an academic research project into a clinical-stage biotechnology company, backed by Brandon Capital, CSL and the University of Melbourne.
Its lead program has already completed an initial Phase I safety study, with encouraging results showing no serious treatment-related adverse events. Planning its Phase 2 clinical trial in periodontitis is well advanced.
The next milestone is another important step forward, recruiting patients for a safety study in people with early Alzheimer’s disease who also have confirmed P. gingivalis infection.
While the trial is designed to assess safety rather than effectiveness, it reflects the growing scientific interest in understanding the relationship between chronic oral infection and neurodegenerative disease.
For Denteric, the opportunity extends beyond developing a new therapy.
It is helping reshape how periodontitis is viewed, not as an isolated dental condition, but as a chronic inflammatory disease with broader implications for human health.
If successful, that could improve the lives of millions of people living with severe gum disease, while opening the door to new ways of treating inflammatory diseases driven by the same underlying biology.
Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs don’t come from discovering a new disease.
They come from looking at a familiar one differently.
