Microbiotica has announced a £36 million ($48 million) Series C first close to advance its experimental ulcerative colitis medicine into Phase 2 testing. The 16 October financing announcement names British Business Bank as lead investor, alongside Tencent, IP Group, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Flerie Invest and Seventure Partners. All investors from its Series B participated.
IP Group disclosed a £4 million investment in its separate announcement. It said that, after a second completion, its undiluted beneficial holding would be 16.4%, valued at £24.1 million. The wording places that ownership figure after the further completion rather than describing every transaction step as already finished. IP Group did not identify a date for that second completion. The £24.1 million figure is its valuation of its own interest, rather than cash received by Microbiotica in the round.
The funding follows an earlier £50 million Series B announced in March 2022. British Patient Capital’s announcement at the time said its investment came through Future Fund: Breakthrough, alongside a round led by Flerie Invest and Tencent. That earlier capital was intended to take the company’s lead cancer and inflammatory bowel disease programmes into their first clinical trials.
Funding the next MB310 trial
The lead programme, MB310, is an oral medicine containing eight specified bacterial strains. In its 11 February trial update, Microbiotica described a randomised, placebo-controlled study involving 29 adults with active, mild-to-moderate ulcerative colitis. Participants took study medication for 12 weeks alongside their existing standard care, followed by another 12 weeks of observation. The trial took place across five European countries and was designed to examine safety, bacterial establishment in the gut and early clinical activity.
The ClinicalTrials.gov record for COMPOSER-1 lists the study as completed, with an actual enrolment of 29 and completion on 8 January 2026. Its primary outcomes concern adverse events and changes in laboratory tests, heart readings and other examinations. The record, last updated on 15 June, contains no posted results tables. It also shows that both trial groups received antibiotic preconditioning before the active medicine or matching placebo. Its registered remission endpoint uses a modified Mayo score with an endoscopic subscore, distinct from the partial Mayo measure quoted in the company’s results update.
Microbiotica reported clinical remission in 12 of 19 participants assigned MB310, against three of 10 given placebo, using the partial Mayo score. It also reported that the eight bacterial strains persisted during treatment and follow-up. Its follow-up remission statement concerned the 12 MB310 participants who entered that stage, rather than everyone initially assigned treatment. Those findings come from the company’s February update and a small early-stage study. They do not establish that the planned larger trial will reproduce the result, or that MB310 is ready for routine clinical use.
The planned Phase 2 trial will be randomised, double-blind and placebo-controlled, according to the financing announcement. Its purpose is to test the earlier findings in further clinical development. The release does not specify a recruitment start date, intended enrolment or a results timetable. This funds further testing, with no Phase 2 outcome yet reported.
A second programme remains in early testing
Microbiotica’s second clinical programme is MB097, a nine-strain bacterial medicine being studied with pembrolizumab in advanced melanoma. In a separate update on 18 May, the company reported on 41 patients across the UK, France, Italy and Spain who had shown primary resistance to anti-PD-1 treatment. That trial examined the safety and tolerability of the combination and early signals of activity, rather than the ulcerative colitis programme receiving the new Phase 2 funding.
All participants in the melanoma study received the combination, while half also received antibiotic preconditioning. Patients benefiting after the initial six-month period could enter an extension and continue pembrolizumab for up to 18 additional months. Microbiotica said extension results would be reported later. This design means the reported early activity should not be read as a direct comparison between the combination and pembrolizumab alone.
Dalimss News has also covered OMass’s financing for drug trials and Suki’s healthcare AI funding.
