, and will be spent on scaling up its manufacturing facilities and reformulating its product from an injectable version to a capsule that people can swallow.BiomeBank’s therapy is available at 40 hospitals nationally. Making the treatment is reliant on healthy people in South Australian donating their poo to BiomeBank. It then goes through rigorous testing and processing.
“It’s donor-derived, so we’re very aware that we’re dependent on human screened donors,” managing director Sam Costello said.“We have developed strategies to increase access to donors as a key requirement to increasing production of the product. GPs can prescribe BiomeBank’s therapy, but it needs to be administered in a hospital. When a capsule is available, the hope is that pharmacies will be able to dispense the product.BiomeBank was founded in 2018 by Dr Costello, a gastroenterologist who has practised in both Adelaide and the UK.
The funding will also support its so-called “second-generation” drug discovery and development programs, and enable its therapy for ulcerative colitis to enter human clinical trials.