Small Business Grant to Advance Antifungal Drug Candidate

NovaBiotics Ltd has secured £1.8million in grant funding as part of a Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) research competition aimed at tackling antimicrobial resistance in humans.

It will be used to help transform the company’s therapy Novamycin from an exciting, laboratory-stage antifungal compound to a fully formulated antifungal drug candidate ready for clinical testing. This would represent a potential breakthrough in advancing the product further towards addressing the significant need for new, safe, effective and therapies for life-threatening invasive fungal infections.

The grant was made as part of a £10million Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition run by Innovate UK on behalf of DHSC, with the aim of supporting the implementation of the Government’s UK Five Year Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy.

Dr Deborah O’Neil, CEO of NovaBiotics, commented: “This award allows us to accelerate the next key stage of Novamycin’s development towards being a much-needed solution to life threatening fungal infections against which the limited number of existing therapies are ineffective. This is a somewhat neglected and under-invested area of antimicrobial research and so we are delighted to have received this strategic funding through the SBRI contract as part of the Government’s commitment to combatting antimicrobial resistance.”

Dr Kath Mackay, Interim Director - Ageing Society, Health & Nutrition, Innovate UK said: “Antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest global challenges in healthcare. It has been estimated that the AMR threat could lead to 10 million extra deaths a year and cost the global economy up to £75 trillion by 2050.