SkinBioTherapeutics PLC (LON:SBTX) have agreed a deal with Winclove Probiotics BV for development of a product.
The company said that its subsidiary AxisBiotix Ltd has signed a development agreement with Winclove Probiotics BV, which would involve the treatment of psoriasis.
Maarten Pekelharing, CEO of Winclove, said:
“We have developed business partnerships across the world and a key criteria for us is that our partners share our ambition to make a difference in people’s health and want to use their businesses as a force for good.
“We are proud to begin a collaboration with SkinBioTherapeutics and feel privileged to work with such a renowned scientist as Prof. Catherine O’Neill.
We are very excited to help SkinBioTherapeutics develop and bring to market together a new probiotic formulation for such an innovative scientific area as the gut-skin axis with the potential to enhance the quality of life for people with difficult to treat skin conditions like psoriasis.”
SkinBioTherapeutics said that the companies had collaborated to help manage the symptoms of skin condition, psoriasis.
Both firms will look to combine their knowledge and expertise to develop a probiotic blend of bacterial strains, based on the modifying properties of specific bacterial species on known psoriasis disease pathways.
The blend will then be developed into a probiotic food supplement which will be named AxisBiotix.
The life sciences and medicinal firm also said that it will take responsibility for the identification and selection of the bacterial strains and patient testing.
Winclove, the other pattern will take control for the formation and manufacturing of AxisBiotix.
Stuart Ashman, CEO of SkinBioTherapeutics, said:
“There is strong scientific evidence pointing to a link between gut dysfunction, stress-induced alterations to the gut microbiome and skin inflammation. We believe that in this partnership with Winclove, which was initiated by our CSO, Prof. Cath O’Neill, we can create a specific probiotic food supplement that has the potential to help manage the hard-to-treat symptoms of psoriasis.
“This agreement with Winclove represents the next phase of SkinBioTherapeutics’ strategy to develop new avenues of microbiome-based technology, this time focused on the gut-skin axis. It also represents the second phase of our strategic plan, following our recent agreement with Croda plc in the active skincare sector.”
SkinBioTherapeutics’ November blues
A few months back, the firm updated the market by reporting that its loss had widened.
The widened loss for financial 2019 was caused by increased research and development spending, but the firm have reassured shareholders that there will be long term benefits.
The firm focused on skin health said it will develop its core technology SkinBiotix, which has secured an extended agreement with Croda International PLC (LON: CRDA) for use in cosmetic applications.
For the annual financial year ending June 30, the firm made a pretax loss of £1.4 billion widened from the £941,451 figure a year ago.
Additionally, no revenue was generated in either financial period, which caused shares to crash.
Research and development expenditure increased from £416,000 to £708,000 omprising development work with the University of Manchester, ongoing manufacture, scale-up and formulation work as well as the costs for the cosmetic human study.
The update today from SkinBioTherapeutics does show good progress, and following the widened loss, shareholders will hope that results can turn into revenues for the firm.
Shares in SkinBioTherapeutics trade at 11p (-11.00%). 19/2/20 11:00BST.