Global health giant’s major investment in Adelaide-based ‘stool bank’
An Adelaide-based biotech company known for its “poo bank” has announced a multimillion-dollar investment from one of the country’s largest vitamin exporters.
Adelaide-based clinical stage biotechnology company BiomeBank has signed a $15 million-dollar investment from natural health and wellbeing company Blackmores.
Founded in 1932, Blackmores is a leading Australian manufacturer and distributor of vitamins, minerals and nutritional supplements, now owned by Kirin Holdings after it bought the company for $1.9 billion in 2023.
The major deal will support BiomeBank to expand its microbiome technology to global markets and launch the next generation of its product development.
BiomeBank’s products are designed to address the loss of beneficial gut microbes – which are linked to a wide range of chronic conditions – by enabling the targeted selection and manufacture of a range of human gut microbes.
Company chair Chris Hall said the investment demonstrated confidence in BiomeBank’s technology and long-term direction.
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“We are focused on deploying capital where we have a clear advantage, as we scale our technology and expand internationally,” he said.
The innovative Adelaide company has been pushing ahead with its ground-breaking research using faecal implants to tackle bowel health problems and won the first regulatory approval in the world for a microbiome-based therapy using donors in 2022.
CEO Dr Sam Costello said that over time, humans have lost many of these microbes.
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“Our goal is to restore those microbes and develop products that are grounded in human biology, using novel strains not currently available,” he said.
“This investment allows us to continue building on our clinical experience and take our technology into global markets, where interest in microbiome-based health solutions is growing rapidly.”
The investment is the first made by Blackmores after its parent company, Kirin Holdings, set up a new entity, Kirin Health Science International, to oversee its health science platform outside Japan.
Alastair Symington, who is president of Health Science International and group CEO and managing director of Blackmores, said the “partnership with BiomeBank is an investment in the next frontier of novel probiotic innovation, informed by leading microbiome research”.
BiomeBank was founded in 2018 by gastroenterologists Dr Sam Costello and Dr Rob Bryant, as well as infectious diseases physician Dr Emily Tucker and microbiome scientist Dr Sam Forster in collaboration with The Hospital Research Foundation.
The company’s flagship product is BIOMICTRA, which involves transferring faecal bacteria from a healthy donor to the bowel of an unhealthy individual to treat serious bowel diseases.
BiomeBank’s purpose-built stool laboratory opened in 2020 to help take South Australia’s pioneering fight against debilitating gut conditions global.
It was started to store donated healthy stools used to help patients fighting inflammatory bowel conditions, by using a procedure called faecal microbiota transplantation.
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