OptiBiotix Health Regulatory News (OPTI)

OptiBiotix Health plc

("OptiBiotix" or the "Company")

Manufacturing, supply and profit sharing agreement with Knighton Foods

OptiBiotix Health plc (AIM: OPTI), a life sciences business developing compounds to tackle obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes and skin care, announces it has entered into a manufacturing and supply agreement with Knighton Foods, ("Knighton"). The agreement grants Knighton an exclusive licence to manufacture and supply OptiBiotix's SlimBiome® weight management technology in the United Kingdom, in return for 50% of the profit, with an agreed cost of manufacture and minimum sales price per kilogramme.

Knighton, a wholly owned subsidiary of Premier Foods plc, is a leading producer of a wide range of high quality, value adding, functional powdered foods, specialist ingredients and finished products, to some of the countries major supermarkets, high street coffee houses, and best-known household brands. Knighton's advanced powder technology was key to developing an improved version of SlimBiome®, providing enhanced solubility and better product presentation, greatly improving flavour and mouthfeel.

SlimBiome®, a patented combination of natural ingredients developed by experts to provide hunger free weight loss, will be supplied by Knighton as a specialised functional ingredient, into a wide range of finished products for use in the retail, vending, and ingredients sectors. Knighton will use their best endeavours to promote and expand the supply of SlimBiome®, bringing it to the attention of product innovation teams across their wide range of customers.

This agreement, with one of the UK's leading specialist ingredients suppliers, is an important step in optimising the supply chain by leveraging Knighton's purchasing power, manufacturing efficiencies and partner network to scale up the manufacture and supply of SlimBiome®.  This is an important step to meet the needs of major UK retailers and exports of SlimBiome®, and SlimBiome® containing products to Tata, and potential new partners, in the Iarge consumer markets of India and the USA.

Stephen O'Hara, CEO of OptiBiotix, commented: "We are pleased to announce the signing of a manufacturing, supply and profit sharing agreement with Knighton Foods. We chose Knighton due to their world leading expertise in adding value and differentiation to speciality powdered ingredients like SlimBiome®. Their development work greatly improved SlimBiome's solubility, taste and mouthfeel whilst reducing the overall cost of manufacture. We believe working with Knighton, and similar partners around the world, provides the best opportunity of meeting the requirements of major retailers and the growing interest we are seeing in SlimBiome® from partners worldwide."

About OptiBiotix - www.optibiotix.com 

OptiBiotix was formed in March 2012 to develop compounds which modify the human microbiome - the collective genome of the microbes in the body - to prevent and manage human disease.

The aim of OptiBiotix is to discover and develop microbial strains, compounds and formulations, which modulate the human microbiome and can be used as food ingredients and supplements or active compounds for the prevention and management of human metabolic diseases, examples of which include obesity, cholesterol and lipid distribution and diabetes. 

OptiBiotix has established a pipeline of microbiome modulators that can impact on lipid and cholesterol management, energy harvest and appetite suppression. The development pipeline is fuelled by its proprietary OptiScreen® and OptiBiotic® platform technologies designed to identify metabolic pathways and compounds that impact on human physiology and bring potential health benefits. These platforms are applicable across a wider range of other human diseases.

About Knighton Foods www.knightonfoods.com

Knighton Foods, based in the U.K are a leading producer of high quality specialist powdered products. Their suite of processes includes, processing, blending and packaging capabilities ranging from portion controlled sachets to 1 ton bulk containers. 

Knighton's technical and R&D capabilities have been developed over 100+ years' and deliver value and functionality to ingredients and finished products, for use in the Retail, Out of Home, and Ingredients sectors. Examples of which can be found on the shelves of the UK's leading supermarkets in some of the most recognised consumer brands, and leading chains of fast food restaurants and coffee shops.