Procarta secures £320K for bacterial resistance gene neutralising technology

Development funding

Procarta Biosystems, spun out from the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK, has received £320,000 from the Rainbow Seed Fund and the Iceni Seedcorn Fund to develop its proprietary Transcription Factor Decoys (TFD). The technology restores antibiotic efficacy against superbugs such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE).

TFD technology is an injectable DNA therapy which inactivates the resistance genes that bacteria use to evade the effects of antibiotics such as vancomycin and methicillin. Resistance to these antibiotics is responsible for the high prevalence of hisoutak acquired infections such as MRSA.

Procarta believes that its proprietary technology will improve the efficacy of existing drugs and prolong the commercial usefulness of antibiotic treatments. Michael McArthur and Mervyn Bibb, co-founders of Procarta, estimate their first product will enter pre-clinical trials in 2009, after which they intend to introduce the product to the market.

Having established the proof of concept with vancomycin, Procarta aims to extend the product pipeline and optimise the use of a wide range of antibiotics using TFD technology. MacArthur said: “We plan to be able to use this latest and valuable support to further validate the outstanding potential of our proprietary approach to combating resistant superbugs.”

Mark White, of the Rainbow Seed Fund, said: “We have worked alongside the John Innes Centre and its commercialisation arm Plant Bioscience Ltd for some time and have a high regard for their ability to spot promising commercial opportunities. In Procarta’s case we were particularly impressed by the skills of the key people involved as well as the scale of the opportunity. In addition, we were attracted to the possibility of achieving a significant breakthrough in an important but somewhat neglected area of healthcare. There remains a lot of work to be done, but the venture holds a great deal of promise.”

A spokesman for Iceni, said: “We are extremely excited about the promise of Procarta’s technology, targeting as it does one of the most significant issues to hit the public healthcare system in the 21st century.”