Australian Biotech Company Takes Big Step Towards Becoming Global Leader
Announcement posted by Figure Eight 20 Feb 2024
MEDIA RELEASE
Adelaide, February 20, 2024
- BiomeBank has received a multimillion-dollar grant from the Australian Government Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) to develop a manufacturing facility for cultured microbial therapeutics in Adelaide, Australia
- The project is a collaborative partnership between BiomeBank, Cytiva, and the Hudson Institute of Medical Research
- The project has a budget of $5.7 million over the next 3 years and aims to create the infrastructure and 'know-how' to scale the new microbial therapies being developed by BiomeBank to commercially viable volumes
Australian biotech company BiomeBank has successfully secured a multimillion-dollar Federal Government grant that will turbo charge the development and production of microbiome-based therapies.
With the global microbial therapeutic market projected to reach a valuation of $45 billion by 2030, the gut microbiome is a new frontier in medicine.
Co-founded by Adelaide based clinician-scientists who pioneered studies using Faecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) to treat Clostridioides difficile infection, BiomeBank is developing a pipeline of complex, cultured microbial biotherapeutic products to target chronic debilitating diseases that current medicine does not satisfactorily treat.
Now, an Australian Government Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) grant of $2,147,887 will enable BiomeBank to scale its pioneering therapies to a commercial scale and support rapid development of new therapeutics.
"The loss of gut microbes is a significant contributor to many common diseases. We have developed a technology to produce cultured human gut microbes as therapies to treat these diseases. This grant will accelerate our efforts to scale our breakthrough microbiome therapies and meet the needs of patients globally," says BiomeBank Co-founder and CEO, Dr Sam Costello.
Working with in partnership with Cytiva, a global leader in life sciences, and medical research leader the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, the Australian Government's CRC-P grant will receive significant in-kind contributions, bringing the total project value to $5,371,031.
Associate Professor Sam Forster, who leads a research team of microbiologists and bioinformaticians at Hudson Institute, says the project is an exciting step towards building capacity across the industry in Australia.
"Improved understanding of the human microbiome and recent technological advances provide an opportunity to develop a new generation of therapies. We're excited to continue our longstanding collaborative partnership with BiomeBank, which has already proven itself as a world-leader by achieving the first regulatory approval of a microbiome therapy worldwide," he says.
The grant success caps off a highly productive period for BiomeBank. In 2022, BiomeBank successfully achieved the world's first regulatory approval for a donor-derived microbiome drug product. In late 2023, BiomeBank's expanded manufacturing facility officially opened in Adelaide's biomedical precinct, enabling it to increase supply of their donor-derived microbiome-based therapy and expanding the company's capabilities to develop new second-generation microbial therapies.
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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. BiomeBank was founded in 2018 by gastroenterologists Dr Sam Costello, Assoc Prof Rob Bryant, infectious diseases physician Dr Emily Tucker and microbiome scientist Dr Sam Forster in collaboration with The Hospital Research Foundation with the aim of commercialising the first donor derived microbiome therapy in the world and developing a cultured, scalable version of a healthy human gut microbiota. 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.
About Hudson Institute:
Hudson Institute of Medical Research, located in the Monash Medical Precinct, is a leading medical research institute known internationally for discovery science and translational research. A/Prof Forster and his team have an extensive, internationally recognised track record in microbiome research as established leaders in bacterial culturing and analysis of metagenomic samples. Hudson Institute, through A/Prof Forster and his team, working with Monash University, have a longstanding collaborative partnership within BiomeBank including previous licensing of intellectual property to guide development of novel microbiome therapeutics.
About Cytiva:
At Cytiva, our mission is to advance and accelerate the development of therapeutics. With nearly 15 000 associates in more than 40 countries, we're driven to use our expertise and talent to achieve better flexibility, capacity, and efficiency for our customers. Our broad and deep portfolio of tools and technologies, global scale, and best-in-class service provides critical support from discovery to delivery, for customers spanning researchers, emerging biotech, large-scale biopharma, and contract manufacturers. Learn more at cytiva.com.