LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Skin health-focussed life science company SkinBioTherapeutics announced on Wednesday that its wholly-owned subsidiary, AxisBiotix, has signed a development agreement with Winclove Probiotics, to help manage the symptoms associated with the skin condition, psoriasis.
The AIM-traded firm described Winclove as a specialist in the research, development and manufacture of probiotic food formulations and supplements.

It said the two companies would design and develop a probiotic blend of "good" bacterial strains, based on the modifying properties of specific bacterial species on known psoriasis disease pathways.

The blend would be developed into a probiotic food supplement, to be branded 'AxisBiotix'.

SkinBioTherapeutics said it would be responsible for the identification and selection of the bacterial strains and patient testing, while Winclove would look after the formulation and manufacture of AxisBiotix.

The development agreement would be for a period of three years, but could be extended by mutual agreement.

Each party retained ownership of its respective intellectual property, and would be responsible for their own costs in relation to the development programme.

As a prerequisite to commercialisation, AxisBiotix would be tested in a UK human study for patients suffering from mild to moderate psoriasis.

The study, to be managed by SkinBioTherapeutics, was expected to start in 2020 and was expected to take between 12 and 18 months to complete.

On the basis of a positive read-out, SkinBioTherapeutics would then proceed with commercialisation, with the parties stating their intention for a commercial launch within 24 months of the completed development programme.

"There is strong scientific evidence pointing to a link between gut dysfunction, stress-induced alterations to the gut microbiome and skin inflammation," said SkinBioTherapeutics chief executive officer Stuart Ashman.

"We believe that in this partnership with Winclove, which was initiated by our chief scientific officer Cath O'Neill, we can create a specific probiotic food supplement that has the potential to help manage the hard-to-treat symptoms of psoriasis."

Ashman said the agreement represented "the next phase" of SkinBioTherapeutics' strategy to develop new avenues of microbiome-based technology, this time focused on the gut-skin axis.

"It also represents the second phase of our strategic plan, following our recent agreement with Croda in the active skincare sector."

At 1425 GMT, shares in SkinBioTherapeutics were down 10% at 11.25p.

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