Optibiotex Health signs contract with Spanish research centre

9th Jul 2015 11:45

OptiBiotix Health, a life sciences business developing compounds to tackle obesity, has partnered with a research centre in Madrid to develop its technology platform.The company signed an agreement with the Instituto de Química Orgánica General, part of the Spanish National Research Council, which will enable it to work on its pipeline of oligosaccharides, which are carbohydrates with small number of sugars.According to OptiBiotix, oligosaccharides could potentially commence human studies next year.Chief executive Stephen O'Hara said: "The last few months have seen substantial progress in reducing the technical risks associated with this exciting programme designed to create low calorie, sweet oligosaccharides, which could be used to reduce chronic lifestyle disease such as heart disease, obesity and diabetes."If successful, this work creates the opportunity to replace 'unhealthy' sugars in many food products with oligosaccharides which can improve health, and herald a new paradigm in the food industry."Shares in the company were down 5.48% to 34.5p on Thursday at 1123 BST.