Aberdeen medical student secures £500,000 seed investment for poop transplant technology

A privately held Scottish biotechnology company run by an undergraduate medical student at Aberdeen University, has raised £500,000 in an oversubscribed seed round of investment.

The financing was led by Edinburgh-based Equity Gap and supported by the Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise.

EnteroBiotix is developing orally-delivered encapsulated microbial therapeutics for use in a medical treatment called Faecal Microbiota Transplantation (also known as FMT or a stool transplant).

The investment will be used to further develop the company’s product pipeline and grow its manufacturing and research team.

The seed round includes £100,000 in non-dilutive funding from a SMART:Scotland feasibility grant to allow the company to develop entirely anaerobic (oxygen free) GMP-compliant collection and processing capabilities.

James McIlroy, a final year medical student at the University of Aberdeen and CEO at EnteroBiotix, said: “This investment and grant funding will be pivotal in furthering the objectives of EnteroBiotix as we develop the first orally available products for FMT in Europe. We are excited to work with Equity Gap and Scottish Enterprise as we build EnteroBiotix into a dominant player this fast-moving field of science and medicine.”

By 2025, the human microbiome market is anticipated to be worth over $2.2 billion.

EnteroBiotix is set to make a first sale in early 2018 and will develop a significant amount of clinical experience from its market entry product offering.

Fraser Lusty, investor director at Equity Gap, said: “We are delighted to provide the early equity to back James and the team at EnteroBiotix. He has impressed greatly with his vision, ambition and desire to create a business that will provide a much-needed solution for disease prevention and treatment. He has secured strong clinical and commercial collaborations, and the funding will be used to develop these to ensure the company meets its near-term objectives.”

Kerry Sharp, head of the Scottish Investment Bank, said: “Scottish Enterprise has supported the company from an early stage in its development through the High Growth Ventures Unit and a SMART grant. We have chosen to continue to work with the company by supporting this seed round to help EnteroBiotix develops its exciting technology.”