Precision Probiotics
A Punch to the Gut (Flora)
Our development of precision probiotics is based on the known scientific fact that the modern, particularly western, lifestyle has caused a loss of microbial diversity in human gut flora. The loss of certain beneficial species of bacteria, usually referred to as ‘microbial old friends’, has been associated with a wide range of health problems.
Targeted Probiotic Solutions
Generic probiotic solutions that focus on microbiota modulation aren’t sufficient to reintegrate the health benefits of lost old friends. Our work is focused on developing probiotic solutions with multiple specific health benefits. By giving the right emphasis to strain-specificity, we soon realized that strains with outstanding phenotypic characteristics — the only ones able to perform specific functions that help treat specific health problems — are extremely rare.
Active Immunity
For example, the strain L. plantarum KABPTM 033 contains a unique genetic characteristic that allows the probiotic to crosstalk with immune cells to initiate a specific immune response after a viral infection, activating B cells and T cells.
The L. plantarum KABPTM 033 strain also helps strengthen innate immunity, promoting the synthesis of type-I INFs that help with viral clearance. Plus, strains L. plantarum KABPTM 021, 022 and 023 promote a healthy gut environment, promoting the first line of defense against viral infection in the gut.
Gathering ‘Old Friends’
To source such extraordinary phenotypes, we can either use our collection of different bacterial strains and/or examine the gut microflora of populations who have preserved a traditional lifestyle, isolated from the modern lifestyle (e.g. traditional indigenous or rural populations around the world).
We travel the world looking for these populations and accumulating samples of different microbiomes (gastrointestinal, oral, vaginal, skin, breast milk, fermented foods). With these samples we created and nourish banks of potentially probiotic strains (which may eventually have a benefit for health).
Our Successful Process
SCREENING PROCESS
During product development, we apply a screening process to the strains available in our existing collection
TARGETED SELECTION
Depending on the mechanisms of action, we create a selection that could be beneficial for specific health areas.
CLINICAL TRIAL
We then blend the top-performing candidates and examine them in clinical trials.
Have more questions?
Precision probiotics are defined not for its nature but for the way they are selected and the way they exert the health benefits. The selection of novel strains of “precision probiotics” is made according to targeted mechanisms of action, with a pre ideated concept of the phenotype of interest.
Also, these strains act in a very specific manner (such as the production of a particular metabolite / postbiotic, the interaction with a metabolic pathway, an enzymatic or immunological activity etc.) vs other probiotic strains that simply act modifying the microbiota composition in a rough and unspecific manner. Also, it can explain how these strains can confer a benefit to the host at much lower doses than other strains and even without having a longer-lasting presence within the organism.
No, gene editing is never involved. The uniqueness of phenotypes already exists in nature. Every human being hosts thousands of bacterial species, each one of those include hundreds of different strains that can present very diverse phenotypes. For example, we can assume that only within the Lactobacillales and Bifidobacteriales species there exist hundreds of thousand strains of potentially probiotic bacteria, and each strain within each species can present unique and differential phenotypes. The truth is that gene editing isn’t needed because nature has given us all the variety we could ask for – it’s all about finding the right phenotype!
Our products are already present in 112 countries worldwide. We are now targeting to expand in the world’s biggest probiotic markets (North America and SEA), which account for more than 80% of the global market of probiotic supplements.
What is the format? Refrigerated? Live? 90% of our products are delivered in pharmaceutical forms, such as capsules, oily suspensions or orosoluble sticks. The products that we deliver to market are formulated in ways that preserve the stability of the strains at a clinical dose until the expiry date without the need of refrigeration. We believe that the live bacteria have a higher potential to confer health benefits and it still represents most of our product offerings, but we are also exploring the area of postbiotics (dead bacteria or bacterial by-products with an associated benefit for the consumer).
