FBD

Let’s be honest: when I first saw the dossier for FBD, I rolled my eyes. Another acronym. Another compound promising to fix the unfixable. The team was split—half convinced it was a breakthrough for gut-barrier dysfunction, the other half muttering about overpriced metabolites. I sat on the fence, clipboard in hand, waiting for the data to tip me. It did. FBD—short for Fiber-Bound Butyrate—isn’t a drug. It’s a medical device in the loosest regulatory sense, classified as such because it works through physical and chemical mechanisms, not systemic pharmacology.