ADELAIDE, Australia
BiomeBank today announced the successful capital raise of $10 million following the biotechnology company’s world first regulatory approval of its donor derived microbiome drug product.
The funding will allow the biotechnology company to scale its GMP manufacturing facility increasing global supply of its recently approved donor derived microbiome-based therapy and further develop its second-generation therapies.
The additional capital will support the company to reformulate its approved product into a freeze-dried and encapsulated therapy that can be taken orally. The funds will also be used to progress the drug discovery and development programs for its cultured “second-generation” microbiome-based therapies. This includes BB265, its cultured therapy for ulcerative colitis to allow BiomeBank to conduct its first human clinical trial.
BiomeBank Chair Mr Chris Hall said, “This is an exciting development for the company as we continue the next stage of expansion and progress our promising pipeline of second-generation products. Microbiome-based therapies are transforming the treatment of chronic disease globally and BiomeBank is leading the charge with its approved first-in-class microbiome-based therapy.
This funding is an important validation that despite the difficult economic period we are in with capital markets, investors can see the value and potential in biotechnology companies like BiomeBank here in Australia.
Australia has many advantages including first class biotechnology researchers and a fantastic health care system that supports research and development as well as clinical trials. We are part of an expanding and rapidly developing biotechnology scene that is now capitalising on the strengths that Australia has. We are poised and ready to deploy this capital effectively.”
Investors that participated in the capital raise include Ellerston Capital and the South Australian Venture Capital Fund, managed by Artesian Venture Partners. The Hospital Research Foundation, who provided founding seed capital and additional support to the company since 2018 committed further capital to this investment round.
South Australian Deputy Premier Susan Close said, “It’s great to see this significant capital raise by one of South Australia’s most exciting early-stage biotechnology companies, with investment from the South Australian Venture Capital Fund coming on the back of earlier grant funding support to BiomeBank from the State Government’s Research and Innovation Fund.”
BiomeBank’s Co-founder, CEO and Managing Director Dr Sam Costello said, “This funding is critical for us to fulfill our mission to treat disease by restoring gut microbial ecology. We are doing this firstly through the supply of our approved donor derived microbial therapy to patients in Australia and then to other countries in our region.
The capital raise is also crucial for progressing our second-generation cultured therapies that we have developed from our large culture collection of individual bacteria isolated from screened donors. These cultured therapies are well defined and have specific functions to treat disease, they are also highly scalable and are positioned to reach worldwide markets.”
BiomeBank has a large culture collection of bacteria strains derived from healthy stool donors, these funds can be used to develop these isolates into defined “second generation” therapies.
This funding will allow the company to identify microbes within its collection that carry specific therapeutic functions and then take them forward as therapies. These therapies will be standardised in composition and are more easily scalable to address disease on a global scale.
BiomeBank announced multiple partnerships with leading research organisations, including research collaborations with the Hudson Institute of Medical Research and RMIT university for microbiome drug discovery and the supply of the approved product to support the Microbial Restoration in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (MIRO) study, the world’s first pivotal trial demonstrating microbiome restoration in the treatment of Crohn’s disease in collaboration with St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
The company has grown its initial staff from nine to twenty-two with further growth forecast for 2023.
About BiomeBank
BiomeBank is a clinical stage biotechnology company developing a pipeline of microbiome-based therapies to treat unmet medical need. BiomeBank’s mission is to treat and prevent disease by restoring gut microbial ecology.
Backed by a world-leading team of translational microbiome experts, BiomeBank’s platform uses a unique combination of machine learning and microbiology to identify bacterial strains which influence disease, leading to the discovery and development of new therapies. www.biomebank.com
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CONTACT
Media
Amy Boyce
M: +61 449 553 990
E: media@biomebank.com
