19 Feb Bio-Me deal with top 10 Consumer Company

Bio-Me, a pioneer in rapid gut microbiome analysis, has entered into an agreement with one of the top ten consumer healthcare companies worldwide using Bio-Me’s Precision Microbiome Profiling (PMP) platform and the HUNT BioBank to identify gut microbiome biomarkers for a specific health condition.

The Bio-Me PMP platform makes high-throughput quantification of multiple bacterial species and strains for hundreds of samples in less than a day. In addition, Bio-Me has an agreement with the HUNT Research Center in Norway, giving the company access to both samples and health data from 15,000 to 20,000 people contributing fecal samples to the ongoing HUNT 4 study. The combination of fecal samples from such a large cohort, extensive medical information about each subject, and Bio-Me’s PMP platform will bring important new insights into the specific health condition covered by this agreement.

Bio-Me’s CEO, Dr. Morten L. Isaksen, commented: “We are delighted to sign this, our first well-funded commercial agreement with a major consumer healthcare company associated with the HUNT4 Study. Our partner’s continued interest and support shows that our PMP platform can assist the Pharma and Food industry alike. Both industry and the scientific community needed a rapid standardized discovery method for identifying important microbiome biomarkers and profiles. With PMP we can do in days what took months, allowing both communities to make life changing discoveries.”

Christian Jonasson, Industry Coordinator at HUNT added:“The decision HUNT took three years ago to include fecal sampling in the HUNT4 study was a strategic move made in order to stay up to date and to advance biobank precision medicine initiatives beyond genomics. We are thrilled to see this now manifested into concrete research activities. Our collaboration with Bio-Me is a good example of a successful public-private partnership as Bio-Me will perform all the analysis and return the data for free to HUNT databank enabling immediate access to academic researchers, while at the same time securing Bio-Me the proper commercial rights.”

Bio-Me has developed a microbiome profiling platform (PMP) that is transforming what is possible in precision medicine and personalized nutrition. The collaboration with HUNT, other BioBanks worldwide, and Bio-Me’s extensive microbiome database will enable drug discovery and companion diagnostics to improve health and well-being worldwide. The company is located at Oslo Science Park, Oslo, Norway.

The Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (The HUNT Study), owned and governed by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), (https://www.ntnu.edu/hunt) is one of the largest health studies ever performed. It is a unique database of questionnaire data, clinical measurements, and samples from a county in central Norway. The HUNT Research Centre has a database with information on 140,000 people recruited in four rounds since mid-1980. Approximately 300 national and international research projects are currently using the samples and data from HUNT’s collection.