A fundamental challenge to any microbiome program is that human gut bacteria have been viewed as unculturable, and the microbiome of any individual could not be characterised with sufficient depth and precision to form a sound basis for translation. Thus metagenomics routinely can classify only 50 % of gut bacterial sequences, meaning that a very large fraction of gut bacteria are not seen, compromising the association between particular bacteria and biology or patient phenotype.

Microbiotica overcomes these challenges using transformational technology developed over more than a decade at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. The company has industrialised these capabilities to create a platform that comprises the world’s leading microbiome Culture Collection and Reference Genome Database, advanced Microbiome Bioinformatics and Machine Learning technology, and an unprecedented capability to isolate all the gut bacteria from any one human (Personalised Bacterial Bank™). Together these capabilities give the company a unique ability to analyse big clinical datasets comprehensively, and discern specific bacterial signatures associated with patient phenotypes. These bacterial signatures then form the basis for Live Bacterial Therapeutics and drug-response biomarkers. Importantly, the very bacteria strains identified by sequencing can be isolated from patients and progress as therapeutics or biomarkers. This level of rigour is required to fulfil the promise of the microbiome in order to enable a new therapeutic modality.

Microbiotica has a substantial IP estate covering both the platform and pipeline.

Microbiotica Patient-first Discovery