At last, a poop armistice

The “poop cartel” may not strike back, but at least one of its members isn’t thrilled to have that label attached to them in The New York Times.

The term was used in an article published Sunday that discussed tensions between non-profits and physicians offering fecal microbiota transplants — which are not regulated by the FDA — and companies developing drugs that will eventually go through the agency’s regulatory processes for drugs.

In an interview with STAT Thursday in New York during a microbiome summit hosted by Chardan, Vedanta Biosciences CEO Bernat Olle said he was “personally offended.” (Vedanta is a member of the Microbiome Therapeutics Innovation Group, as the piece notes.)

“They quoted this PI that was talking about ‘poop cartels,’ and kind of presenting companies as opposed to physicians,” said Olle, noting that the person quoted had run trials for OpenBiome, which works frequently with another company in the space, Finch Therapeutics.

“This is a war that’s manufactured," he said. "This is not a war that exists. We’re all trying to get therapies to patients.”