Collaboration Created to Identify Natural, Marine-Derived Food Preservatives

Aquapharm and Leatherhead Food Research will offer a rich new source of naturally derived antimicrobial compounds, to the food and beverage industry and seek an appropriate partner, or partners, to support the further development and commercialisation of selected candidates.

Oct 22 2010 --- Aquapharm Biodiscovery, a leading marine biotechnology company, has announced that it has signed a research agreement with Leatherhead Food Research to identify novel functional extracts with broad-spectrum anti-microbial activity using Aquapharm’s extensive collection of marine micro-organisms.

Under the terms of this agreement, Aquapharm will apply its suite of proprietary screening technologies, including SeaRch, and fermentation know-how to generate extracts for screening. Leatherhead Food Research, drawing on its scientific expertise and track record on the identification, evaluation and application of alternative preservatives for food and other applications will then undertake the screening of these short-listed extracts from Aquapharm’s collection against a range of different micro-organisms, bacteria and fungi.

Aquapharm and Leatherhead Food Research will offer the output of this screening effort, namely a rich new source of naturally derived antimicrobial compounds, to the food and beverage industry and seek an appropriate partner, or partners, to support the further development and commercialisation of selected candidates.

The collaboration represents a major step forward for Aquapharm in realising the potential of its unique marine assets and expertise in the food and beverage sector. This builds on its established deals with Croda to develop novel bio-active ingredients for the personal care industry and AMRI to isolate and identify active pharmaceutical ingredients, thus maximising the exploitation of its marine collection in producing a range of high value-added products for multiple market sectors.

On signing of the agreement, Aquapharm CEO Simon Best said “Today’s consumers are increasingly demanding naturally derived ingredients and we are delighted to engage in collaboration with Leatherhead Food Research, who operate at the very forefront of food research, to develop a productive new source of natural preservatives that meets this need.”

“Consumer demand for additive-free foods is a key research driver in the area of food preservatives. Adding to Leatherhead’s current research portfolio on natural alternatives to chemical preservatives, this collaboration aims at the effective exploitation of Aquapharm’s unique source of biodiverse marine micro-organisms,” said Dr Evangelia Komitopoulou, Head of Food Safety at Leatherhead Food Research.

Initial results from this research agreement are expected during early 2011.

Aquapharm is a marine biotechnology company pioneering the discovery, isolation and development of novel, marine-derived bioactives for application in a wide range of commercial sectors, including pharmaceuticals, functional ingredients and industrial biotechnology.

Aquapharm has built a substantial and specialised collection of marine bacteria and fungi from a variety of diverse habitats. Through the application of its proprietary technologies to this collection, the company has been able to stimulate the production of novel, biologically active products with broad chemical diversity. To accelerate its discovery efforts, Aquapharm is currently focused on completing one of the world’s largest marine derived compound libraries containing small molecule and peptide compounds. The completion of this new compound library will accelerate Aquapharm’s drug discovery efforts, principally in the anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory fields. Aquapharm has commercial agreements with Croda Plc and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories in regards to sourcing marine compounds for use in the personal care and bio-catalysis fields respectively. In March 2010, Aquapharm received a £4.2 million investment from existing investors and appointed biotech entrepreneur Simon Best as CEO, the company’s founder Dr Andrew Mearns Spragg as CTO and Dr Tim Morley as CSO. Aquapharm is based at the European Centre for Marine Biotechnology in Oban, Scotland.