OptiBiotix Health PLC (LON:OPTI) has signed a deal with an unnamed US company for the “large scale manufacture and commercialisation” of a line of its SweetBiotix natural alternatives to sugar.
The new partner, whose identity is being kept confidential to protect its launch plans, has been granted an exclusive worldwide licence.
In return, it will bear the product manufacturing and marketing costs of the roll-out and all future expenditure for a “number” of products.
OptiBiotix said it will receive a “modest six-figure payment” on signing the agreement and at 12 monthly intervals until product launch. Additional similar payments will be due at product launch and it will receive royalties on all future sales, it added.
There is also the potential for enhanced royalty payments from 11 potential customers with whom OptiBiotix has already been in discussions.
“The agreement allows the US company to invest in the large scale manufacture and commercialisation of a number of SweetBiotix products in return for upfront, annual and product launch milestone payments, plus royalties on all future product sales,” Stephen O’Hara, chief executive of OptiBiotix said in a statement.
"With concerns over the amount of sugar and lack of fibre in consumer diets creating high levels of diabetes and obesity, this agreement brings closer the prospect of replacing 'unhealthy' sugars with healthy sweet fibres which contain no calories and improving microbiome diversity and the benefits of SweetBiotix technology to a global audience."
The UK group is a specialist in healthcare products and food supplements that target the human microbiome, a complicated ecosystem of bacteria that exists in the gut and on the skin.
It is currently developing products to tackle obesity, high cholesterol and diabetes.