We’re in the world of biotech today, to meet a startup targeting a condition that can render infections immune to antibiotics.

It’s a fascinating part of the wider antimicrobial resistance issue, which is one of the most significant healthcare challenges in the world. Read on to find out all about AURApeutics.

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– Martin

AURApeutics wants to destroy the ‘slime’ rendering antibiotics useless

The threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the greatest public health risks in the world, potentially rendering a wide range of antibiotics useless in the future.

There is work taking place around the world to counter this. For example, we covered MetalloBio back in 2022, which develops a next generation of antibiotics. And earlier this year we looked at Iuvantium, which is developing new vaccines as an alternative.

But AURApeutics is taking a different approach. Rather than create new medicines, it wants to make existing medicines newly viable.

“One of the problems with drugs inherently when it comes to bacteria, evolution will always win. It doesn't matter what drug we come up with, bacteria are going to grow and they are going to become resistant to it. It's just a never ending cycle,” says Victor Choi, founder and CEO of AURApeutics.

“What we're trying to do is overcome that altogether by using the existing drugs, but giving them a brand new modality. So what we can effectively do is imbue these standard, classic antibiotics, the ones that you can get off the shelf… and give them a brand new way to treat these infections, which otherwise they couldn't.”

What the startup has developed is a platform technology that Choi says works with any antibiotic they’ve tried it with. In particular, it’s been developed to target a problem that exists today, even before the real threat of AMR has fully taken hold.

“The biggest challenge that we face right now is the concept of a bacterial biofilm. It's effectively a slime-like matrix covering the bacteria, preventing all the standard therapies from working,” Choi says.

Bacterial biofilms can lead to persistent infections that can’t be properly treated.

“What we're trying to do is effectively transform existing antibiotics by using ultrasound, so we can actually coat them onto tiny little nanoparticles, where, once they get into that infection site, they effectively explode. They’re completely constrained to the infection site, so they’re very safe. They basically blast apart the slime, but also push the drug deep inside bacterial cells to kill them rapidly.”

Choi says that in preclinical trials, the technology has completely wiped out entire infections with a single five-minute treatment.

The story so far

Choi trained as a pharmacist before taking a master’s degree focused on nanoparticle design. He then went on to do a PhD at the University of Oxford, researching the technology behind what has become AURApeutics.

The work underpinning the startup is part of a wider programme of research called Beyond Antibiotics.

Choi has founded the startup with a view to making the most of his work,

“In order to truly get it to make impact, there unfortunately has to be some sort of a commercial drive. It's the nature of the capitalistic market at the moment. So the decision was made to try and create a company, and now we're definitely trying to push it as far as we possibly can.”

He worked with Conception X to help build a startup around the research.

A proof-of-concept preclinical trial is underway, and Choi says the plan is to start clinical trials of its first product in around two years’ time.

The next year is going to be all about regulatory approval to convince regulators the treatment is safe, and scaling up production through collaborations with third-party companies to ensure they’re ready to commence human trials as soon as possible.

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