Aquapharm Biodiscovery, based in Oban, UK, develops natural products derived from a library of over 7,250 marine micro-organisms. Its core product portfolio includes small-molecule and peptide natural products that are already being exploited commercially with major partners in the personal care and pharmaceutical sectors. The company is pursuing new collaborations to apply its marine-derived compounds in nutrition. Management changes accompanied the financing: entrepreneur Simon Best was appointed CEO while founder Andrew Mearns Spragg becomes Chief Technical Officer. The recent financing will be used to further develop and commercialise its product portfolio and to build a large marine-derived compound library with molecules sized and structured for potential drug development. Aquapharm is focusing that library principally on the anti-microbial field. Aquapharm Biodiscovery harvests and cultures marine microbes and screens them for new biochemicals that could serve as drugs or additives for food and cosmetics. The company focuses on discovering antibiotics and antioxidants from marine organisms. It is based near Oban in the European Centre for Marine Biotechnology. The firm completed a second funding round that raised $8.3 million (£4 million). Proceeds are intended to support its ongoing screening and discovery efforts. No operating metrics were disclosed in the article.

Total raised

$15M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Mar 2010