BioGaia Establishes Subsidiary for the Development of Probiotic Drugs

22 Jun 2017 --- BioGaia has established a subsidiary, BioGaia Pharma AB, for the development of drugs identified in the research and development conducted in the company's normal operations. Since the foundation of BioGaia the company has focused its development efforts on the regulatory categories dietary supplements and food for special medical purposes. For certain target segments, the company says these categories are limiting and in some cases it lacks distribution channels for pipeline products. For this reason, the board has decided to also develop probiotic drugs through BioGaia Pharma.

According to the company, drug candidates will primarily be developed to be licensed to appropriate partners at relatively early stages and BioGaia's capital commitment is therefore initially limited. If capital requirements were to increase significantly, the assessment is that external funding is possible.

In 2013, BioGaia started its subsidiary Infant Bacterial Therapeutics (IBT) to develop a drug for premature infants. IBT was distributed to BioGaia’s shareholders in March 2016 and is now an independently listed company on First North Premier.

Since 2014, BioGaia is also a partner in the microbiome company MetaboGen. In recent years, the interest in probiotics and the so-called microbiome, as well as the possibility of developing drugs from probiotic bacterial strains or its metabolites, has increased strongly, and pharmaceutical and nutrition companies are already investing heavily in the field. BioGaia wishes, through its solid knowledge in the field of probiotics, to take advantage of the commercial opportunities that arise.

Nigel Titford, responsible for BioGaia's business development, will become BioGaia Pharma's CEO. The Board consists of Peter Costantino, Professor of Neurosurgery, Hofstra-Northwell School of Medicine, New York, Peter Rothschild (Chairman), Group President BioGaia, Thomas Schnitzer, Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Rheumatology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Axel Sjöblad, Managing Director BioGaia and Staffan Strömberg, CEO IBT.

In April, BioGaia announced that it signed three new exclusive agreements for Prodentis, its oral food supplement that contains a natural lactic acid bacteria, Lactobacillus reuteri Prodentis. The new agreements will see the product launched in Canada, Vietnam and the Philippines.