Life sciences company NexaBiome is aiming to close its largest-ever funding round to further work in the battle against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) that has led to the emergence of "superbugs".
Founded in 2010 as a spin-out from the University of Strathclyde, the company was originally known at Fixed Phage prior to re-branding in the second half of last year. Neil Clelland, who took over as chief executive in May 2023, said the newly-dubbed NexaBiome hopes to complete a £10 million funding round in the first quarter of this year to expand its animal and human health programmes.
The company has a portfolio of 10 core patents around a platform technology that uses bacteriophages, an abundant type of virus that destroy 20% of the global population of bacteria on a daily basis. NexaBiome has built up a polymicrobial library of phages based on which are best at destroying specific strains of bacteria.
The technology has applications in variety of areas, and NexaBiome has previously worked in the fields of food safety, aquaculture and cosmetics. However, the company is now focusing on the threat of AMR to human and animal health.
"The phages are not very stable in their natural state," Mr Clelland explained.
"Our technology stabilises those phages, so we attach them to substrates [like] powders that can be incorporated into a formulation. That is really ‘productising’ the phage - making it more stable to be incorporated into a product.
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“The library, the selection and the production of phages is phage therapy, and you can treat tens or maybe hundreds of patients with that sort of approach. With the formulation piece you can develop product at a mass scale, so rather than treating hundreds of patients, the potential here is to treat millions of patients.”
NexaBiome is particularly targeting a group of bacteria collectively known as "ESKAPE", an acronym of the scientific names of six highly virulent bacterial pathogens that are resistant to traditional antibiotics. The World Health Organisation regards these as one of the top 10 threats facing humanity at the moment.
A report by the United Nations has forecast that by 2050, 10 million people could die each year from multi-drug resistant bacterial diseases. This will cost the global economy about $100 trillion in increased healthcare costs, lost productivity, and agricultural losses.
“It’s been well-publicised that antibiotics have been over-used and misused in animal health and human health, and that has given rise to these superbugs, and they are becoming increasingly resistant to these drugs," Mr Clelland said.
"It has been described as the silent pandemic, so it’s creeping up on us at the moment. In order to address this we need alternative solutions to the traditional antibiotics that we have because at the moment they are not working.”
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Currently employing 16 people at its offices and labs in the West of Scotland Science Park, NexaBiome was founded on the work of Professor Mike Mattey at the University of Strathclyde. To date the company has raised about £8m in funding from Scottish Enterprise and private investors including Barwell Consulting, the Glasgow-based venture capital business of the late fifth Viscount Gough.
Mr Clelland joined what was then Fixed Phage in May 2022 as commercial director and was promoted a year later to chief executive. Prior to that he was head of commercialisation and innovation at SRUC, having initially joined the rural college in 2017 as a geneticist.
“The company was called Fixed Phage before and it was all about stabilising and attaching these phages, so we were the phage fixing company," he said. “So really this re-brand to NexaBiome is in my opinion waking a sleeping giant in terms of the company as an end-to-end phage company.”
He added: “It is very important for me that the business is purpose-led [by] addressing AMR. This investment will really enable us to build a team in the human health and continue that programme.”
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