Cash injection to take novel health ingredients to clinical trial
Aquapharm Biodiscovery, the tiny Scottish research company spearheading the extraction of functional food and pharmaceutical ingredients from marine micro-organisms, has secured £4M of private and government funding to enable it to bring a number of compounds to clinical trails.
Aquapharm, which screens its database of 6,000 marine microbes for novel active ingredients such as anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, will use the cash injection to bring forward its work on the rare carotenoid, zeaxanthin, which has a role in preventing the eye disease, age-related macular degeneration.
Dr Andrew Mearns Spragg, CEO of Oban-based Aquapharm, said: “The investment will allow us to scale up our work to take it to clinical trials.” Aquapharm also wants to trial its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent phytoene which is said to protect the skin against ultra-violet radiation.
The new funding in Aquapharm has been led by Aescap Venture with co-investor Tate & Lyle Ventures who will each have a seat on the Aquapharm board. The other investors are Scottish Enterprise; the National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts (NESTA); and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
According to Spragg, the investors will get their money back from licensing deals with pharmaceutical companies and ingredient manufacturers. Aquapharm was looking to license out the manufacture of its products within the next two or three years, he said, and was looking for suitable partners.
