BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - Amoebics Ltd., a spinout from Edinburgh University, raised £500,000 (US$763,000) in a second-round funding to scale up manufacturing of an antibiotic derived from amoeba and take the compound through animal testing.

The money comes from a group of Scottish investors led by the Archangel Syndicate, also based in Edinburgh.

Amoebics was set up in 1998 to commercialize the research of Sutherland Maciver at the university's School of Biomedical Sciences. He has developed techniques for the identification and isolation of specific binding proteins on the surface of amoeba that are responsible for triggering the amoeba's absorption of bacteria.

"Since amoeba are found everywhere and survive by engulfing microorganisms, they have evolved very specific recognition systems," Maciver said. "These can be used to develop novel treatments for bacterial disease, particularly those in which antibiotic resistance is a growing problem."

The project will be led by Martyn Breeze, a director of Amoebics who also is product development director at PPL Therapeutics plc, a specialist in the production of human proteins from the milk of transgenic animals.

Breeze told BioWorld International, "I am spending time at Amoebics with the agreement of PPL. I am very much in a kind of mentoring role, helping Amoebics to build its manufacturing capabilities and avoid the problems which many start-ups have when it comes to making protein-based drugs."

Amoebics' lead compound kills both antibiotic-resistant and non-antibiotic-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, in vitro. The protein already has been made on a laboratory scale in recombinant yeast, and the new funding will permit larger-scale production and enable preclinical trials to be completed. "We will then either partner the product or raise more money," Breeze said.

The money also will be used to commence development of two further proteins that are active against enterococcus and streptococcus, and fund two technicians to identify amoeba that eat other types of bacteria.