OptiBiotix has signed three more commercial agreements on the supply and technology of human biome 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 20. UK-listed OptiBiotix has 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 14 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, 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.”