PBL outlicenses anti-C. difficile compound to Sarum

Licensing

Sarum Biosciences Ltd and PBL (Plant Bioscience Ltd), a UK technology management company, has announced the signing of licence agreement for a bacteriophage endolysin protein technology for development as a treatment and diagnosis of Clostridium difficile gastro-intestinal infections.

The technology, developed at the Institute for Food Research (IFR) in Norwich, exploits naturally occurring proteins expressed by bacterial viruses (bacteriophage) that have very specific antibacterial activity. This is important because existing broad-spectrum antibiotic treatments for C. difficile infections also kill normal bacterial populations in the gut.

“Using bacterial endolysins has been of interest to IFR for many years in the food context,” said Arjan Narbad of the IFR, an institute of the BBSRC, which funded the study.  “Now we have an endolysin that is active specifically against C. difficile we are looking forward to developing it into a potent weapon against this problem.”

Sarum will be working with the support of the teams at PBL and IFR to develop the endolysin technology and take it through pre-clinical and clinical development. This alliance will enable the project to benefit from IFR’s expertise in the area of C. difficile and gut microbiology, allied to Sarum’s experience in bacteriophage-based technology and drug development.

PBL was formed in 1994, and is now jointly owned by The John Innes Centre, The Sainsbury Laboratory and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. The company manages and develops intellectual property in the life sciences emerging from public research institutions, including IFR and other BBSRC-sponsored institutes.