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Conventional healthcare therapy is under attack as micro-organism evolution overwhelms an ageing drug armoury. ZooBiotic has developed an early dominant position in the provision of powerful and cost effective alternatives in the fight against infection and chronic disease.
The strength of the ZooBiotic strategy is its reliance on natural processes that provide potency and durability through evolutionary rather than synthetic development.
ZooBiotic Ltd's core competence is its intimate knowledge of the species Lucilia sericata and how it can be harnessed commercially to treat disease in the human and animal alike.
The medical profession has already demonstrated an enthusiasm for and endorsement of ZooBiotic Ltd's products (LarvE® and BioFOAM™) now in routine use for the debridement of infected and necrotic wounds; yet there is so much more that is promised from this species that the strategy has a long way to run.
ZooBiotic aims for rapid consolidation of its leadership position in debridement, particularly through international growth. In parallel, it can invest in intellectual property and commercial exploitation of antimicrobial and wound healing agents which have attractive global markets.
Achieve outstanding commercial returns through the exploitation of Intellectual Property derived from devices and bio chemicals of animal origin which contribute towards fighting infection and curing chronic disease.
There have been several historic impediments to the wide scale adoption of larval therapy for wound debridement:
ZooBiotic has already addressed a majority of these issues. The recent introduction of the BioFOAM™ dressing has transformed the cosmetic acceptability of the product to patients and staff alike and also provided a simple and straightforward dressing procedure. Our state of the art production facility is already licensed by MHRA to produce sterile larvae thus eliminating concerns about pathogens.
We have a strategy to achieve regulatory approval for our products in Europe and generate clinical evidence to support our rapid debridement claim when compared with other dressing products. Our evidence will support an early election for larval therapy rather than as product of last resort. This change in regulatory status will transform our ability to promote usage of BioFOAM™ throughout the EU.
Wider geographic revenues will be achieved through franchising the BioFOAM™ and LarvE® products to partners in Asia and the USA. In these regions, the regulatory demands are significantly less than those current in the EU as the US FDA has already determined that larvae are a medical device with a marketing authorisation through the 510k route.
The rapid emergence of antibiotic resistant strains of common pathogens has led to considerable turmoil in the use of antimicrobial wound care products and some older products (e.g. honey, sodium hypochlorite and permanganate) have been making a return. There is very wide concern about the lack of powerful new antimicrobial agents and the market is ripe for a breakthrough product.
Such agents have already been described in the secretions of fly larvae; they use them to protect themselves and defend their food territory from bacteria that would otherwise devour the same necrotic tissue. These agents have thus evolved over time to destroy microbes without toxicity to the larvae and appear to defeat the evolutionary energy of the bacteria. Current clinical research has recorded the effectiveness of these agents against MRSA and confirmed that no apparent adverse effects are evident in the treated patients thus implying agents with high specificity and selectivity.
It is ZooBiotic Ltd's strategy to work in partnership with Swansea University in order to initially characterise the chemical structure of these agents and thence to determine a route for commercial protection and exploitation. Current data would imply that the agents could be synthesised and thus form a potential new antibiotic family. These agents would best be exploited in conjunction with an established pharmaceutical company to include the development work needed for a medicines license. There is a possibility that the agents might be systemically active and therefore offer the prospect of access to a much greater systemic antibiotic market segment valued at £13 billion in revenues in 2002.
Having a positive impact on the rate at which a wound heals remains the holy grail of wound care. Many advanced wound care products impinge upon the domain of growth factors but offering clinical evidence to support a license application remains elusive. Hyaluronic acid derivatives have achieved some progress but usage remains low as wounds require very thorough cleansing before they will respond.
There remains a very real concern that agents which significantly impact growth factors might also have commensurate consequences for uncontrolled growth.
The rapid production of healthy granulation tissue often observed with larval therapy has led to the assertion that there is a stimulatory effect on wound healing. A scientific basis for this hypothesis has come from the studies of human fibroblasts exposed to larval secretions and mediation of epidermal growth factors. Whilst there remains further work to be done, the possible association with a tried and trusted safe method of wound treatment presents exciting opportunities for ZooBiotic.
