Introduction

Novolytics was formed in 2002 as a spin-out from the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK, to exploit the results of research into the use of bacteriophages to combat bacterial infection (phage therapy). The unique proprietary technology of the company is the basis for its success and its market readiness.

Bacteriophages

A bacteriophage is a virus, made up of a piece of genetic information within a protein coat, and can reproduce only in susceptible cells. The target cells for phages are specific kinds of bacteria. They cannot infect the cells of more complex organisms because of major differences in key intracellular machinery as well as in cell-surface components.Bacteria and phages have evolved together, so each kind of bacterium has its own phages associated with it, which can be isolated wherever that particular bacterium grows.

Phages can either be lytic, causing immediate rupture of the bacterial cell, or can be lysogenic, whereby the phage can integrate with the bacterial DNA and remain dormant until environmental stresses trigger the assembly and release of progeny phages and rupture of the cell. This dormant stage of a lysogenic phage is known as a prophage.

 

Phage Therapy a short history

 

Phage therapy was first developed early in the 20th century but has been little used in the West since the advent of antibiotics in the 1940s. However, it has been widely used in Eastern Europe, and many successes have been reported over the last fifty years. The results of that work, together with recent animal work in the West, encourage optimism that phages can play an important role in dealing with increasingly drug-resistant microbes.

Previously, phages were given by virtually every route, at unknown concentrations, to patients without specific bacteriological diagnosis, using uncontrolled trials with little or no long-term follow-up. The success of phage therapy therefore needs to be validated using proper controlled clinical trials and proper diagnoses.

 

Phage Therapy potential advantages

 

Phages are both self-replicating and self-limiting, and are targeted far more specifically than antibiotics to the specific problem bacteria. They cause much less damage to normal bacterial flora, reducing the risk of secondary infections, hospitalisation time, expense and mortality. Because phages can be targeted to the receptors on the bacterial surface that are involved in disease, resistant mutants are attenuated in virulence. They also have the advantage that, unlike antibiotics, they continue multiplying and penetrating deeper as long as the infection is present.

Phages could be used independently or in conjunction with other antibiotics to help reduce the development of bacterial resistance, or be used prophylactically at times of risk to help protect against hospital-acquired (nosocomial) infections.

Few, if any, side effects have been reported for phage therapy and patients with allergies to conventional antibiotics may tolerate phage therapy approaches better.

Management team

Nick joined Novolytics in June of 2003 and has recently been appointed to the board of directors. He brings over 17 years experience in technology oriented research in both academia and industry and has a broad knowledge base in microbiology, cancer research, immunology, bioinformatics, biochemistry and surface sciences. Following commercial experience at Oxagen Limited (UK) Nick worked in a business development role in the technology transfer office of the University of Warwick. Following this Nick worked as a biotechnology company mentor at the  Incubator Company at the University of Manchester (UMIC) and has now set up a biotechnology incubator at Warwick HRI, a department of the University of Warwick.

Nick H Mann, Chief Scientific Officer and Director

Professor of Biology at the University of Warwick and founding member of Novolytics, Nick has been involved in microbiological research for over 30 years and has over 70 refereed publications. He is currently on the Steering Committee of the Natural Environment Research Council Marine and Freshwater Microbial Biodiversity programme (Budget £7.4 M). He has previously been a member of the Council of the Marine Biological Association of the UK, the Natural Environment Research Councils Marine Science and Technology Board and its Marine Science Peer review Committee. His research is supported by grants from the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences research Council and the Natural Environment research Council.

 

Non Executive Directors 

Sandy Primrose

Bill Dawson - Chairman

Bill is a pharmacist who specialised in pharmacology, working in academia (School of Pharmacy, University of London) and research at British Industrial Biological Research Association and Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, USA before joining Eli Lilly and Co at their research facilities in the UK. He was appointed as a senior pharmacologist and became Manager Biological Research and then Director of Research. He took 17 compounds into development, two of which reached the marketplace. Olanzapine (Zyprexa ^TM) an antipsychotic was the most recent. His final appointment at Lilly was Director of Technology Acquisitions, Europe. He retired in 1996, established Bionet Ltd as a health care consultancy and works at the academic / industry interface facilitating discovery and development of new medicines. He is a Director of Proteome Sciences plc and Antitope Ltd. In addition, Bill has been a board member of Pharmaceutical Licensing in the UK for ten years.