Glox Therapeutics secures £4.3m seed funding
Glox Therapeutics, a spin-out from the universities of Oxford and Glasgow that specialises in precision antibiotic therapies based on naturally occurring bacteriocins, announced that t has raised £4.3 million in seed funding.
The Company will use the funding to establish laboratories in Oxford and Glasgow and expand its team to accelerate its bacteriocin development programme. The investment round was led by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Scottish Enterprise.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major public health crisis throughout the world. It is estimated that around 1.27 million people per year die as a result of AMR due to the therapeutic failure of available antibiotics.
By 2050, AMR is predicted to surpass 10 million deaths globally per year at a cost of $100 trillion dollars.
Prof Chas Bountra, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Innovation, University of Oxford, said: “There is a growing consensus that the next generation of antibiotics should be narrow-spectrum therapeutics, able to target specific pathogenic AMR bacteria without collateral damage to the wider human microbiome, which is so vital to our health and wellbeing.
''Glox Therapeutics’ high-potency therapies offer the long-awaited solution to address these urgent unmet medical needs in tackling treatment-resistant bacterial infections.”
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Glox Therapeutics is developing precision antibiotics utilising engineered protein bacteriocins. These novel antimicrobials exhibit remarkable potency and specificity, enabling them to effectively and selectively target Gram-negative pathogens that have already developed AMR.
The Company was founded in February 2023 by recognised leaders in the bacteriocin field: Prof Daniel Walker from the University of Glasgow (now at the University of Strathclyde) and Prof Colin Kleanthous, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), from the University of Oxford.
Kerry Sharp, Director of Entrepreneurship and Investment, Scottish Enterprise, said: “Glox Therapeutics is a fantastic example of an ambitious spin-out that’s commercialising world-class life sciences research with the potential to save lives worldwide.
''The calibre of Scottish early-stage companies, like Glox Therapeutics, continues to attract international investment, enabling our youngest companies to positively contribute to Scotland’s economy as they scale up.”
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