Glox Therapeutics secures £4.3m to develop precision antimicrobials

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.

“Our mission is to provide physicians and patients with highly potent, targeted antimicrobial therapies that can kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria for which there are diminishing options available for treatment,” said Dr James Clark, CEO of Glox Therapeutics.

“This seed funding is testament to the promise of Glox Therapeutics’ precise antibiotic therapies, and we are thrilled to have the backing of such high-calibre investors. This will enable us to establish laboratories and attract top-tier talent, and I’m delighted to lead the team as we embark on our pioneering bacteriocin development programme, with the first target being P. aeruginosa.”

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, Glox reports that AMR is predicted to surpass 10 million deaths globally per year at a cost of $100 trillion dollars.

The company’s precision antibiotics utilise engineered protein bacteriocins. They are able to target Gram-negative pathogens that have already developed AMR, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

Bacteriocins, which are naturally produced by bacteria, possess antimicrobial properties against strains of the same or related species.

Through bacteriocins, Glox aims to advance the field of antimicrobial therapy by overcoming resistance to traditional antibiotics. It will focus on selectively eradicating target pathogens while preserving the patient’s microbiomes.

Professor Chas Bountra, pro vice-chancellor for innovation, University of Oxford, commented: “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.”