10th Mar 2015 10:19
LONDON (Alliance News) - OptiBiotix Health PLC Tuesday said it has signed a third contract with NIZO Food Research BV under which the Dutch contract food research organisation will screen strains of bacteria for the presence of enzymes which produce novel oligosaccharides or carbohydrates that consists of a small number of sugars.
The deal extends OptiBiotix's screening programme on Lactobacillus species to other species of bacteria, and the developer of compounds to tackle obesity, high cholesterol and diabetes hopes the work will help identify non-digestible sugars with the potential to act as calorie free sweeteners, and/or selectively enhance the growth rate of specific microbial strains, species, and genera, to modulate the human microbiome to prevent, manage, and treat disease.
"Increasing the number of microbial species is an exciting extension of our existing programme which broadens the range of product and partner opportunities and mitigates development risk. We are particularly pleased that commercial partners have recognised the opportunity presented by this work and have included their own strains in the development programme," OptiBiotix Chief Executive Stephen O'Hara said.
The company said 360 bacteria strains have been selected from OptiBiotix's own collection and partner collections, including 10 strains from commercial partners. The strains have been selected to produce sugars with a potential to manipulate the human microbiome in order to manage high cholesterol, obesity, and diabetes. Strains demonstrating high enzyme production will undergo additional testing to determine enzyme activity and sugar structure, it added.
OptiBiotix shares were up 0.4% at 28.50 pence Tuesday morning.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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