The three-year agreement is with the Spanish Institute of Personalised Nutrition (IENP) in a deal that grants them non-exclusive rights to manufacture and market food supplements containing OptiBiotix's LPLDL in Spain.
“We are delighted to enter the field of personalised and precision nutrition, one of the fastest-growing and highest-value sectors within the food industry,” said Dr Luis Gosálbez, OptiBiotix’s business development director.
“Within two years of launch, we now have products being sold by numerous partners in over 30 countries around the world.
“We see this agreement as another step to growing revenues, market presence, and brand value of LPLDL, the 'Intel' inside a wide range of products in consumer and pharmaceutical markets around the world."
Microbiome-liver axis
LPLDL is one of a number of Optibiotix products, offering a natural, scientifically backed alternative to improve blood lipid profiles, blood pressure and cholesterol levels without known side effects.
LPLDL is said to harness the microbiome-liver axis to positively impact upon the gut microbiome, specifically focusing on the modulation of bile acid metabolism.
This activity is important to bacterial survival in the intestine’s hostile environment and aids conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, as well as physiological processes including vitamin metabolism, glucose regulation and liver function.
IENP, the precision nutrition branch of CAPSA Food, one of the largest food conglomerates in Spain, have developed a genomic test to analyse the gut microbiome to detect imbalances, which may potentially lead to different health conditions.
Based on results, IENP then place customers on targeted food supplement regimens in an attempt to correct these gut imbalances.
One of IENP’s products is COL-15, a microbiome-modulating food supplement commercialised under the ‘39ytú’ brand.
IENP will use their extensive network to market the product in supermarkets, department stores, pharmacies, and online across Spain.
LPLDL worldwide
The deal becomes the latest agreement that attempts to extend the reach of Optibiotix’s LPLDL to other countries.
Optibiotix struck a deal with Italy’s Fine Foods & Pharmaceuticals (Fine Foods) in March of this year in which its terms grant Fine Foods an exclusive European production and supply license for proprietary formulations in sachets and sticks including OptiBiotix’s LPLDL.
An additional deal made in Europe occurred In June last year, when OptiBiotix signed a license agreement with Alfasigma to exclusively commercialise food supplements containing the LPLDL strain in Italy.
The ten-year agreement includes an upfront payment and royalties with five figure minimum payments guaranteed each year, according to Per Rehne, commercial director at OptiBiotix.
Further afield, LPLDL became available to the Japanese food and nutrition market for the first time via an exclusive deal with distributor EIWA Trading Corporation in February of this year.
Based in Osaka, Japan, EIWA secured the exclusive rights to import, market and distribute LPLDL for three years for use as a food and dairy ingredient.
