Cambridge-based Microbiotica has secured a £36 million first close of a Series C financing to take its ulcerative-colitis candidate MB310 into Phase 2 development. The round is led by the British Business Bank and includes a further £4 million investment from existing backer IP Group, which said the company’s next study will test whether promising early findings can be confirmed in a larger trial.
The financing is a material step for a company developing live microbiome-based medicines, but it is not evidence that MB310 works as a treatment in routine care. The company says the funding will support the next clinical stage after COMPOSER-1, a Phase 1b study. Phase 2 will need to establish whether the earlier signal holds up under further testing; the candidate remains investigational and is not an approved ulcerative-colitis medicine.
What the funding supports
Microbiotica said Tencent, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Flerie Invest and Seventure Partners also participated, alongside the British Business Bank and IP Group. It described the £36 million as the first close of the Series C, rather than a final total for a completed financing. The announcement gives the equivalent as $48 million. No valuation or total target for any later close was disclosed in the checked announcements.
IP Group separately reported that it invested £4 million in the round. It said that, following a second completion, it would hold an undiluted beneficial interest of 16.4% in Microbiotica, valued at £24.1 million. That statement is prospective and conditional on the second completion; it should not be read as a claim that the investment round has already reached that later stage. The £4 million represents one investor’s participation within the £36 million first close, not additional funding on top of it.
MB310 is described by its developer as a once-daily oral capsule containing a consortium of eight specific live gut bacterial strains. The company says its approach is intended to support repair of the gut’s epithelial barrier and reduce inflammation. These are the intended mechanism and product description, not established clinical benefits for patients.
Early trial findings still require confirmation
Microbiotica reports that COMPOSER-1 met its primary and secondary endpoints and showed statistically significant improvement in clinical remission compared with placebo. It also says the study found changes in histological measures and markers of intestinal barrier integrity. The financing announcement does not provide the trial’s participant number, remission rates, absolute difference, confidence intervals or duration of follow-up, so those quantities cannot be inferred from the headline description.
The company characterises the Phase 1b results as positive, while the next randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 study is intended to examine whether the early results can be reproduced. That distinction is important in ulcerative colitis, where an initial signal must be tested in a larger and more rigorous setting before clinicians or patients can judge its significance. The announcements do not establish a Phase 2 start date, recruitment timetable or eventual regulatory pathway.
Ulcerative colitis is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease affecting the large intestine. Existing therapies do not bring every patient into remission or keep symptoms controlled, leaving a continuing need for additional options. Microbiotica says MB310 could potentially be combined with existing treatments, but that is a development rationale rather than evidence of a proven combination benefit.
A wider platform, with the same evidence test
The company was spun out of the Wellcome Sanger Institute in 2016 and is based at Chesterford Research Park near Cambridge. Its research platform uses cultured gut bacteria, genomic information and clinical-trial datasets to identify microbial patterns associated with outcomes in particular patient groups. Such associations can help researchers select candidates, but they do not by themselves show that a selected strain causes a better outcome; that question depends on clinical testing.
Microbiotica also describes a separate oncology programme, MB097, being studied with pembrolizumab in advanced melanoma. That programme is distinct from MB310 and the ulcerative-colitis financing objective. The immediate test for the new capital is whether it enables a well-designed Phase 2 study that adds robust evidence on benefit and safety. Until results from that work are available, the company’s earlier findings remain encouraging preliminary evidence, not a basis for treating MB310 as an established therapy.
