Microbiotica Wins Biotech and Money’s ‘Life Science Spin-out of the Year’

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Cambridge, UK, 18 September 2017 – Microbiotica, a leading player in microbiome-based therapeutics, announces that it was chosen as the winner of the ‘Life Science Spin-out of the Year’ at the recent Biotech and Money 2017 Awards.

The award recognises both Microbiotica’s potential in the microbiome sector and its achievements to date as the newest spin-out company from the world-renowned Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, including its £8m equity financing in 2016 from Cambridge Innovation Capital and IP Group. The Company is at the forefront of understanding how the microbiome can be used to develop new therapeutics for a range of diseases and to stratify patients according to their microbiata.

Votes for each category were determined 50% by advanced online voting and 50% by a live vote on the night of the Awards dinner, which was held in London on 14 September.

Dr Mike Romanos, CEO of Microbiotica, said: “It is rewarding for our team to achieve this recognition in the first year. Being selected for this award by our peers is a great endorsement of the strength of Microbiotica’s science and the progress made by its talented team.”

Microbiotica to Present at Leading Microbiome Summit

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Cambridge, UK, 18 September 2017 – Microbiotica, a leading player in microbiome-based therapeutics, announces that it was chosen as the winner of the ‘Life Science Spin-out of the Year’ at the recent Biotech and Money 2017 Awards.

The award recognises both Microbiotica’s potential in the microbiome sector and its achievements to date as the newest spin-out company from the world-renowned Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, including its £8m equity financing in 2016 from Cambridge Innovation Capital and IP Group. The Company is at the forefront of understanding how the microbiome can be used to develop new therapeutics for a range of diseases and to stratify patients according to their microbiata.

Votes for each category were determined 50% by advanced online voting and 50% by a live vote on the night of the Awards dinner, which was held in London on 14 September.

Dr Mike Romanos, CEO of Microbiotica, said: “It is rewarding for our team to achieve this recognition in the first year. Being selected for this award by our peers is a great endorsement of the strength of Microbiotica’s science and the progress made by its talented team.”

Microbiotica Shortlisted for 2017 OBN Awards ‘Best Start-up Biotech Company’

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Cambridge, UK, 9 August 2017 – Microbiotica, a leading player in microbiome-based therapeutics, is delighted to be announced that it has been selected as a finalist in the ‘Best Start-up Biotech Company’ category of the OBN Awards 2017.

Being selected for the shortlist recognises Microbiotica’s commercial potential in the fast growing microbiome space, reflecting its innovative understanding of the gut microbiome and the therapeutic potential to address a host of disorders through microbial targets.

In 2016, Microbiotica was created with £8m funding from Cambridge Innovation Capital and IP Group to commercialise the groundbreaking research of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

The finalist will be selected on the following criteria: formed for less than two years, has raised substantial financial support (£1m-£20m), is developing novel and disruptive products and has proof of financing raised and ongoing deals in the pipeline, with evidence of a commercialisation strategy.

The winners for all eight categories will be announced at the awards evening on Tuesday 5 October 2017 at the OBN Annual Awards Ceremony at Oxford Town Hall.

Microbiotica Wins One Nucleus Summer BioNewsRound Award

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Cambridge, UK, 13 July 2017 – Microbiotica, a leading player in microbiome-based therapeutics, is pleased to announce that it was voted as the winner of the Summer 2017 BioNewsRound Award at the One Nucleus event held ahead of the Annual On Helix conference in Cambridge.

Microbiotica won the award based on the prospects for the company, its reflection on innovation in the UK sector and its potential to bring benefits to patients.  Microbiotica was launched at the end of 2016 as the newest spin-out company from the UK’s world-renowned Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute with £8m funding from Cambridge Innovation Capital and IP Group. Each of 10 companies shortlisted for the Award presented to the audience which voted for their choice.

Mike Romanos, CEO of Microbiotica, said: “As a relatively new company it’s encouraging that our potential is already being recognised. Microbiotica was formed on world-class human microbiome research and we are looking forward to driving forward the discovery and development of novel microbiome-based therapeutics and biomarkers using this science.”

Harriet Fear, CEO of One Nucleus, said: “Choosing the 10 finalists from the many entries was tough. It was interesting that three of the finalists were in the microbiome space, reflecting the growing interest and huge potential in the area. Microbiotica was a worthy winner and it was great that they were presented with the award at our event held on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus.“

Microbiotica Shortlisted for Biotech and Money’s ‘Life Science Spin-out of the Year’

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Cambridge, UK, 26 June 2017

Microbiotica, a leading player in microbiome-based therapeutics, is delighted to announce that it has been shortlisted for the ‘Life Science Spin-out of the Year’ category of the Biotech and Money 2017 Awards.

Microbiotica was selected as a shortlisted finalist for its success as the newest spin-out company from the UK’s world-reknowned Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, with £8m funding from Cambridge Innovation Capital and IP Group. The judges recognised the Company’s leadership position in understanding how the microbiome can be used to not only develop new therapeutics for a range of diseases but also how to stratify patients according to their microbial profile, identify links with disease and exploit its full potential for human healthcare.

Voting is now open. The winners in each category are determined 50% by this online voting and 50% by a live vote on the night of the Awards dinner, which is held in London on 14 September.

Microbiotica to Present at Microbiome Drug Development Summit

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27-29 June 2017, Boston

Cambridge, UK, 20 June 2017 – Microbiotica, a leading player in microbiome-based therapeutics, announces that its Chief Scientific Officer Dr Trevor Lawley will present at this year’s Microbiome Drug Development Summit, 27-29 June in Boston.

Dr Lawley’s talk ‘Culturing the “unculturable” to harness the therapeutic potential of the human intestinal microbiome’ will take place at 9.00am on Wednesday 28 June. The presentation will focus on his pioneering work that allows culturing, genomic and functional characterisation of the majority of the intestinal microbiota.

Microbiotica, which was spun-out of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in 2016, was formed around ground-breaking research led by Dr Lawley and is focused on microbiome biology and its use in medicine, covering both novel bacterial therapeutics and patient diagnostics. Cambridge Innovation Capital and IP Group co-invested £8 million into the start-up.

Dr Mike Romanos, CEO of Microbiotica, said: “Over the past decade there has been a groundswell of research demonstrating how pivotal the human microbiome is to health and disease. Trevor’s research at the Sanger Institute has transformed our ability to culture, sequence and characterise bacteria associated with biological phenotypes, opening up new avenues for therapeutic and biomarker discovery, which Microbiotica is translating and commercialising.”

The Microbiome Drug Development Summit is a meeting dedicated to accelerating the discovery, clinical development and commercialisation of a new generation of microbiome-based therapeutics. This year’s event runs from 27-29 June and will be held at Aloft Boston Seaport, Boston.

Microbiotica Appoints John Shields as Non-Executive Director

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Microbiotica, the spin-out company from the UK’s Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (Sanger Institute), is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr John Shields as a non-executive director representing the Sanger Institute.

Dr Shields has extensive operational and investment experience in the biotechnology sector and is currently a member of the Sanger Institute Translation Committee, the Crick Institute Translation Advisory Group and the Medical Research Council’s Translational Research Group. He serves on a number of biotechnology company boards and is an adviser to several venture capital groups. Previously, he was an adviser to Abingworth Management, the life-sciences focused venture capital group, and has also worked in the pharma and biotech industry, initially at Glaxo and then as SVP Research for Cantab Pharmaceuticals.

Mike Romanos, Chief Executive Officer of Microbiotica, commented: “We are delighted to welcome John to Microbiotica’s Board. His experience in the translation of innovative science will bring invaluable insights to the company as we work to commercialise ground-breaking research into the role of the human microbiome in health and disease, and its application to medicine. His appointment is a welcome and tangible demonstration of our ongoing close link with the Sanger Institute, and I am sure he will make an immediate and important contribution to the team.”

Dr Shields commented: “Microbiotica is an immensely interesting organisation with, I believe, significant potential to apply its understanding of the role of human gut microbiome in health and disease to develop bacteriotherapies. I am looking forward to helping the team realise the enormous opportunity which is emerging from our increased knowledge of the role of the microbiome and to offering a new approach for treating diseases for which conventional treatments have been inadequate.”

Dr Shields joins existing Microbiotica Board members Mike Romanos, CEO, and Trevor Lawley, Chief Scientific Officer, along with Sam Williams, Head of Biotech at IP Group plc, and Robert Tansley, Investment Director at Cambridge Innovation Capital plc.

– ENDS –

Notes about Microbiotica

  • Microbiotica was established in 2016 to develop and commercialise ground-breaking research into the role of the human microbiome in health and disease and its application to medicine conducted in the Host-Microbiotica Interactions Laboratory (“HMIL”) at the Sanger Institute.
  • Microbiotica’s founders are Mike Romanos, Trevor Lawley and Gordon Dougan, FRS.
  • CIC and IP Group are co-investors in Microbiotica, with a £4m contribution from each party to provide total initial funding of £8m.
  • Microbiotica is based at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridge, UK, with offices in the Biodata Innovation Centre and laboratories in the Sanger Institute.

Cambridge Innovation Capital plc and IP Group plc announce the creation of Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute spin-out company, Microbiotica

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Based on ground-breaking research at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute into the role of the human microbiome in disease

Goal is to create the world’s leading company focused on microbiome biology and its use in medicine

Cambridge Innovation Capital and IP Group co-lead £8m funding round

Cambridge Innovation Capital plc (“CIC”), a Cambridge-based investor in technology and healthcare companies, and IP Group plc (LSE: IPO) (“IP Group”), the developer of intellectual property-based businesses, announce the creation of Microbiotica Ltd (“Microbiotica”), a newly formed spin-out company from the UK’s Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (“the Sanger Institute”) based at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Hinxton, Cambridge.

Microbiotica will look to develop and commercialise new defined bacteriotherapies based on the human gut microbiome. CIC and IP Group are co-leading this investment, with a £4m contribution from each party, to provide total initial funding of £8m.

Microbiotica has been established to commercialise ground-breaking research, conducted in the Host-Microbiota Interactions Laboratory (“HMIL”) at the Sanger Institute, into the role of the human microbiome in health and disease and its application to medicine. The HMIL is led by Dr Trevor Lawley and collaborates with the Professor Gordon Dougan research group. The Sanger Institute teams have made significant breakthroughs in the analysis and understanding of the human microbiome, combining an extensive DNA sequencing capability with novel culturing methods, to build a first-in-class gut microbiome culture collection and reference genome library. Since 2010, Dr Lawley’s group has cultured and sequenced the genome of thousands of bacterial strains from the gut of humans, representing the world’s largest culture collection of intestinal bacteria. This has given the group important new insights into the association of these bacteria with a range of diseases. Added to this, the group has developed a leading expertise in humanised models for the development of live bacterial therapeutics and exceptional bioinformatics capability.

Microbiotica has been granted unique access to these resources and capabilities and will use it to gain unparalleled insights into the microbial communities in both healthy and diseased individuals, enabling the identification of specific disease-related bacteria, patient-stratification strategies and novel therapeutics. Microbiotica has also been granted exclusive rights to existing potentially therapeutic bacterial mixes that have shown striking effects in novel models of disease, and which will be progressed into pre-clinical development over the coming year.

Recognition of the importance of the microbiome, the body’s trillions of resident bacteria, represents a paradigm-shift in our understanding of its impact on human health and disease. This creates major opportunities in the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of disease including enteric infections, autoimmune disorders, metabolic disorders, cancer and neurological disease.

Microbiotica’s science will be directed by Dr Lawley, who will be Chief Scientific Officer. The company will be led by Dr Mike Romanos who, as Chief Executive Officer, brings a wealth of experience as a seasoned drug discoverer and entrepreneur in the biotech sector. Dr Romanos previously held senior global roles in GSK and as CEO built Crescendo Biologics. Professor Gordon Dougan is also a co-founder. CIC and IP Group will each appoint a director to the board of Microbiotica. The company will use the funds to establish labs within the Wellcome Genome Campus at Hinxton, Cambridge, to progress multiple live bacteriotherapy discovery programmes into development.

Mike Romanos, CEO of Microbiotica, said, “It has been a privilege to work with my co-founders Trevor Lawley and Gordon Dougan to create the concept of Microbiotica as a leading player in microbiome-based therapeutics. We are very excited to be working with CIC and IP Group to now turn the vision into reality as we start to build the company, based at the Wellcome Genome Campus, leveraging the strengths of the Sanger Institute to create new medicines.”

Dr Trevor Lawley, CSO of Microbiotica said, “Our work at the Sanger Institute has shown that the human microbiome is important for health and disease, and is itself a therapeutic target. I am delighted that the establishment of Microbiotica will allow us to harness the therapeutic potential of the complex microbial community in the body to create novel treatments and help improve human health.”

Dr Robert Tansley, Investment Director at CIC, added, “Research into the microbiome is a fascinating area of study with huge commercial potential. We have been working closely with Mike, Trevor, IP Group and the Sanger Institute to ensure that Microbiotica has an excellent foundation and can benefit from the tremendous body of work created by Trevor and his team. With our founding investment in Congenica, the genome discovery and diagnostics company, we have been privileged to be instrumental in the creation of two spin-out companies based on world class research from the Sanger Institute.”

Dr Sam Williams, Head of Biotech at IP Group, said, “We are delighted to be involved in the creation of what promises to be an exciting new commercial approach to the microbiome. By exploring the fundamentals of gut flora distribution and genetics, Microbiotica has an opportunity to take a lead in the understanding how the microbiome can be used to not only develop new therapeutics for a range of diseases, but also how to stratify patients according to their microbial profile, identify links with disease and exploit its full potential for human healthcare. This investment reflects IP Group’s approach to new company formation in the biotech sector, backing only the science which promises to bring about revolutionary approaches to human medicine and the teams that can deliver them.”

Dr Trevor Lawley, CSO of Microbiotica said: “Our work at the Sanger Institute has shown that the human microbiome is important for health and disease, and is itself a therapeutic target. I am delighted that the establishment of Microbiotica will allow us to harness the therapeutic potential of the complex microbial community in the body to create novel treatments and help improve human health.”

Professor Sir Mike Stratton, Director of the Sanger Institute, said, “The Wellcome Genome Campus is home to research institutes, spin-out and start-up companies, academic-industry partnerships and Genomics England; all dedicated to driving and leading pioneering research and innovation in the sphere of genomes and biodata. Microbiotica grew out of Sanger Institute science and I’m delighted that Trevor and his team will continue to be immersed in the intellectual environment on campus. The Biodata Innovation Centre and the companies in it is the first major step in our progression of our vision for this Campus as a global hub for genomics and biodata.”

Notes

About Cambridge Innovation Capital

Cambridge Innovation Capital (“CIC”) combines a unique relationship with the University of Cambridge with deep financial and industry links to invest in rapidly growing intellectual property rich companies in the Cambridge Cluster.

CIC has an unrivalled appreciation for the application of world-leading scientific developments given its position within the Cambridge Cluster. The company is committed to building leading businesses from brilliant technologies – with the support of some of the most influential figures in the sector and a patient capital structure.

About IP Group

IP Group is a leading intellectual property commercialisation company which focuses on evolving great ideas, mainly from its partner universities, into world-changing businesses. The Group has pioneered a unique approach to developing these ideas and the resulting businesses by providing access to business building expertise, capital (through its 100%-owned FCA-authorised subsidiary IP Capital), networks, recruitment and business support. IP Group has a strong track record of success and its portfolio comprises holdings in approximately 80 early-stage to mature businesses across four main sectors — Biotech, Cleantech, Healthcare and Technology. The Company is listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange under the code IPO.

About the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute

The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is one of the world’s leading genome centres. Through its ability to conduct research at scale, it is able to engage in bold and long-term exploratory projects that are designed to influence and empower medical science globally. Institute research findings, generated through its own research programmes and through its leading role in international consortia, are being used to develop new diagnostics and treatments for human disease.