Scientific success leads to strong portfolio of commercial deals for UK-based microbiome company, OptiBiotix Health
- In September OptiBiotix signs three more agreements
- OptiBiotix has now signed more than twenty deals across the world
OptiBiotix has signed three more commercial agreements on the supply and technology of human microbiome modulators in September. This brings the number of deals with industry partners across the world in both the food and healthcare industries to more than twenty. UK listed OptiBiotix have pioneered the development of microbiome modulating compounds in conjunction with the world’s leading academics.
The latest three deals have been with a Bulgarian-based company for CholBiome®, Taiwan-based Bened Biomedical for OptiBiotix’s cholesterol and blood lowering probiotic strain LP-LDL®, and a biotherapeutics drug agreement with an unnamed US company for LP-LDL®.
Stephen O’Hara CEO of OptiBiotix commented “We are pleased with the high industry interest in our award-winning technology and products which has led to OptiBiotix signing more than twenty agreements in the last 18 months and a large deal pipeline. We believe that the development of products with strong science, independent clinical studies, and key opinion leader endorsement, will continue to convert the high interest in our products into rapidly growing revenue streams in the months and years ahead.”
One of OptiBiotix’s lead products, Lactobacillus plantarum LP-LDL®, has been shown to significantly reduce both cholesterol and blood pressure with no observable side effects. There has been considerable commercial interest in LP-LDL® following the results of a peer reviewed study, published in the journal PLOS One.
OptiBiotix has signed more than fourteen agreements covering manufacturing, application development, sales and distribution for LP-LDL®, including Seed Health (‘Seed™’) from the US, Sacco and AlfaSigma in Europe, and Pharmabiota in Australasia. The agreements cover LP-LDL® both as an ingredient and in finished supplement formulations.
OptiBiotix’s functional weight management ingredient, SlimBiome®, which won the ‘Weight Management Ingredient of the Year’ award at the global NutraIngredients Awards 2018, has also attracted significant interest from corporate partners with more than five agreements with food companies across the world concluded. These include Cereal Ingredients in the US, Tata, and Morley’s of the UK. SlimBiome® actively helps people to consistently manage their weight loss by reducing their food intake, without the usual food cravings.
SlimBiome has been developed with a number of global partners as a functional ingredient in breaded products, biscuits, dairy, muesli pots, porridge pots, healthy snacks such as yoghurt coated fruits, and a range of cereals in puff, flakes, and crisp format.
OptiBiotix has also developed a prebiotic (SweetBiotix®) as an alternative to sugar and existing artificial sweeteners. A University of Reading study found that the SweetBiotix® fibres were significantly sweeter than wide range of existing sugars and fibres and sucrose. A previous study had found that SweetBiotix® has the sweetness of between 140X and 223X of sucrose at equivalent concentrations. SweetBiotix® has attracted two deals with major global corporates including, a major European food producer, who is a world leader in dairy products, and an ingredient leader in the US.
Stephen O’Hara continued “These deals with both national and global corporates across all our platforms are part of our strategy to work with partners to support scale-up, manufacture and commercialisation of our range of microbiome modulators. We believe it is our strong research and development ethos that has led to a rich deal pipeline which will hopefully lead to significant revenues in the months and years ahead.”
About OptiBiotix
OptiBiotix was formed in March 2012 by Stephen O’Hara to develop compounds which modify the human microbiome – the collective genome of the microbes in the body – in order to prevent and manage human disease.
OptiBiotix has extensive R&D program which works to discover and develop microbial strains, compounds, and formulations which can modulate the human microbiome. These can then be developed into food ingredients or supplements for the prevention and management of human metabolic diseases. OptiBiotix’s current areas of focus include obesity, cardiovascular health, and diabetes.
OptiBiotix has established a strong pipeline of microbiome modulators and has recently entered into a number of national and international commercial agreements.