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DuPont Nutrition & Health announces development of Microbiome Venture

4 Dec 2017

DuPont Nutrition & Health has announced the development of what it describes as a significant new initiative with the creation of a Microbiome Venture to spearhead development of new microbiome science-based solutions.

DuPont Nutrition & Health has announced the development of what it describes as a significant new initiative with the creation of a Microbiome Venture to spearhead development of new microbiome science-based solutions. The Microbiome Venture will play a key role in DuPont’s business growth strategy, the company says.

“Microbiome science is developing extremely fast with tremendous opportunity for innovation,” said DuPont Nutrition & Health Global Technology and Innovation Leader Angela Naef. “With the Microbiome Venture, we intend to build on our probiotics leadership position to develop new microbiome science-based solutions for health and wellness.”

The Microbiome Venture will engage in strategic partnerships with other microbiome science leaders in academia and industry to accelerate product development. The Microbiome Venture is described as a focused entrepreneurial team with a strong connection to the larger DuPont organization, tapping into global research, development and commercialization capabilities. The Microbiome Venture investment will complement DuPont’s existing product portfolio, especially in the areas of probiotics and prebiotics, including human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs.)

The first major partnership of the Microbiome Venture is with the APC Microbiome Institute in Cork, Ireland, a collaboration between University College Cork, Teagasc (the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority) and Cork Institute of Technology. This multiyear partnership with the APC Microbiome Institute will focus on maternal and infant microbiomes, which play a critical role in infant development and long-term health. The goal is to develop solutions for establishing a healthy microbiome in early life.

As one of the pioneers in the field of the microbiome, the APC has significant breadth and depth in microbiome science capability including an impressive track record in the areas of mother-infant and gut-brain axis. This, says the company, made them an ideal partner for DuPont Nutrition & Health’s new venture.

“‘We are delighted to be working with DuPont Nutrition & Health on this exciting project, which we are confident will lead to new innovations in infant gut microbiome science, for advancing infant health and development,” said Professor Catherine Stanton, project leader at the APC Microbiome Institute.