Angel Investors Back Animal Health Diagnostics Technology

Members of the Anglia Capital Group have committed £80,000 towards a £150,000 SEIS round in PBD Biotech, a business that has developed a proprietary technology which can be used to detect the presence of Tuberculosis, for use in the animal livestock industry.

PBD Bio (Phage-based Diagnostic Biotechnology) was founded to commercialise a series of new diagnostic tests in the agriculture/dairy industry with future upside application in clinical settings. The Company’s technology exploits the ability of bacterial viruses (bacteriophage) to infect live bacterial species in a strain-specific manner and addresses areas of huge commercial importance particularly in the rapid diagnosis of Mycobacterial infections in agricultural/dairy settings. Originally developed by the University of Nottingham as a new tool for diagnosis of human tuberculosis, the technology has now been refined and

improved to offer transformational tools for the agricultural industry.

With test results available in 6 to 8 hours, where existing tests take 20+, the implications of this disruptive technology, is greater productivity in the agricultural industry through significantly lower morbidity rates, reduced wastage, and also public health benefits by a reduction of transmission to humans.

Anglia Capital Group, the Norwich Research Park-based Angel Investor network, believe that this business represents an exciting proposition with the opportunity for an early exit via trade-sale with a significant return on investment. The possibilities for future diversification of the technology into other markets further enhances investment attractiveness.

The round, led by Cambridge Angels and completed by Anglia Capital Group, is now oversubscribed. Though PBD Bio has said that there may be an opportunity for other Anglia Capital Group angels to come in on the next round when the firm is ready for global expansion.