OptiBiotix Health Regulatory News (OPTI)

OptiBiotix Health plc

("OptiBiotix" or the "Company")

Strategy Update

OptiBiotix Health plc (AIM: OPTI), a life sciences business developing compounds to tackle obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes and skin care, announces a strategy update.

 In late 2015, OptiBiotix identified that the potential opportunities presented by the microbiome were greater than it first anticipated. To capitalise on these opportunities, OptiBiotix raised £1.5m in November 2015 and a further £1m in February 2016. These funds are being used to accelerate development and identify new opportunities leading to the company: -

· Acquiring the exclusive rights to intellectual property developed by The University of Manchester in skin health, creating a majority owned joint venture called SkinBiotix Limited

· Broadening its intellectual property portfolio which now covers 45 patents across 14 families, 8 strain registrations, and 7 trademarks. This is a substantive increase from the 5 patents at listing

· Developing its OptiBiotix sugar technology platform into multiple platforms creating new application areas and product opportunities including: -

i. Microbiome modulators: general microbiome modulators which alter the short chain fatty acids in the gut to prevent, manage, and treat diseases

ii. OptiBiotics®: sugars which enhance the growth rate of specific microbiome species allowing a targeted approach to microbiome modulation

iii. SweetBiotix®: non-digestible (no calories), sweet, healthy sugars

· Forming six commercial partnerships across all its platforms. These help fund product development and create a route to global markets with royalty streams on product sales

OptiBiotix believes its Optiscreen®, OptiBiotix®, SlimBiome® and SkinBiotix® technology platforms are now reaching a stage of development where it is advantageous to form separate divisions, each containing its own technology platform, IP portfolio and partner agreements. These divisions could in due course become separate legal entities with the potential for a separate public listing. The directors believe that shareholder value could be maximised by adopting such a strategy whereby existing shareholders could, in the event of a successful flotation, ultimately hold shares directly in OptiBiotix and one or more of its underlying divisions.

Stephen O'Hara, CEO of OptiBiotix, commented: "The rapid developments in the understanding of the microbiome have been matched by Optibiotix's own progress in a number of key but diverse areas. I believe that OptiBiotix's diversity of both IP and Commercial relationships offers shareholders ‎multiple opportunities where future value to shareholders may be best realised by spinning out domain specific opportunities where we as a Board believe the individual parts may be properly resourced and valued. In its own right it is not a new idea but one that has previously worked well for a number of companies." 

About OptiBiotix Health plc - 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®, OptiBiotic®, and SkinBiotix® 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.