Investors

OptiBiotix Health plc (AIM: OPTI), a life sciences business developing compounds to tackle obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes and skin care, announces three new patent filings. These filings protect the production methods and product application areas arising from OptiBiotix's SweetBiotix® product development programmes. These include:-

1. Natural high intensity sweeteners with improved flavour profile and microbiome modulating functionality. Human studies (announced 11 July 2017) have demonstrated these have a good flavour profile and sweetness of between 140X and 223X of sucrose at equivalent concentrations.
2. Sweet natural healthy fibres being developed as potential bulk sugar replacements which are not digested in the human gut, and hence calorie free. Human studies (announced 23 January 2018) have demonstrated these sweet fibres had the highest sweetness and lowest off-flavours when compared to a wide range of existing sugars and fibres and sucrose.

These patent filings follow on from a total of five successful independent human studies in which OptiBiotix's products and comparator samples were tested by an expert panel of 11 panellists who rated 11 products attributes (e.g sweetness, aftertaste, off- flavour, bitterness etc) compared to sucrose.

The Company believes that these patent filings add a further layer of protection to its intellectual property portfolio, create a highly valuable asset and broaden the number of product application and partnering opportunities. These now include use as a sweetener and/or functional food ingredient for foods, beverages, cereals, breaded products, dairy products, and incorporation into confectionary, snacks, and meals, or use as a standalone sweetener product.

Given that the global sweetener market, currently dominated by sugar, is forecast to reach $112bn by 2022 (Mordor Intelligence, 2017), the Company believes filing these additional patents will help protect its inventions and fully exploit the commercial opportunities being explored with industry partners.

Stephen O'Hara, CEO of OptiBiotix, commented: "We are pleased to announce the filing of these patents which add a further level of protection and value to our SweetBiotix® product development programmes. Given the scale of the opportunity and the high level of interest we have seen from multiple corporate partners, these flings help protect OptiBiotix's valuable inventions and broaden the number of product application opportunities. With growing concerns over traditional sugars and artificial sweeteners, SweetBiotix® has the potential to address a global consumer and industry need, addressing international concerns over the impact of sugar on obesity, with the prospect of replacing 'unhealthy' sugars in existing products with non-digestible, low calorie, healthy, SweetBiotix.®"

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014.

For further information, please contact:

About OptiBiotix - www.optibiotix.com

OptiBiotix was formed in March 2012 to develop compounds which modify the human microbiome - the collective genome of the microbes in the body - to prevent and manage human disease.

The aim of OptiBiotix is to discover and develop microbial strains, compounds and formulations, which modulate the human microbiome and can be used as food ingredients and supplements or active compounds for the prevention and management of human metabolic diseases, examples of which include obesity, cholesterol and lipid distribution and diabetes.

OptiBiotix has established a pipeline of microbiome modulators that can impact on lipid and cholesterol management, energy harvest and appetite suppression. The development pipeline is fuelled by its proprietary OptiScreen® and OptiBiotic® platform technologies designed to identify metabolic pathways and compounds that impact on human physiology and bring potential health benefits. These platforms are applicable across a wider range of other human diseases.