Animal health product developer Bactana is advancing Cornell University research into probiotics that could lead to improved vitality for livestock including cattle, swine and poultry.
Bactana, a US-based animal health product developer that has licensed Cornell University research, has closed a $1.3m equity round featuring Cornell and Connecticut Innovations, the venture capital vehicle for the State of Connecticut.
VC fund Sustainable Income Capital Management also took part in the round, as did unnamed additional funds and private investors. The deal includes conversions of existing debt and interest instruments.
Founded in 2016, Bactana has devised a microbiome discovery platform that identifies targets in the gut microbiome of farming and companion animals in order to develop probiotic animal health products.
The probiotics, which contain naturally-occurring bacteria branded Pioneer Gut Colonizers, will offer an alternative to antibiotics, which become increasingly ineffective over time. The gut microbiome has been linked to a range of health considerations.
The approach was discovered by a research team led by Bactana’s chief scientific officer Rodrigo Bicalho, professor of dairy production medicine at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. During early-stage studies, Bicahlo’s team proved the Faecalibacterium prausnitzii probiotic could reduce symptoms of severe diarrhoea in preweaned dairy cows.
Bactana will deploy the capital to expand the lab at its newly-opened facilities, which are based in University of Connecticut’s Health Cell and Genome Science Center.
Funds have also been allocated for the recruitment of technical experts and additional trials of Bactana’s first probiotic platform, FPS-4 for cattle, swine and poultry. The company expects to develop commercial manufacturing capacity to support FPS-4’s launch.
