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London-based startup BoobyBiome is developing a synbiotic supplement for infant gut health, made using a blend of beneficial bacteria strains identified from human breast milk.
February 5, 2025
Product development kickstarted in June 2024 as part of a 27-month project following a €1.8 million (£1.6m) grant from Innovate UK. BoobyBiome is also set to launch a patented breast milk storage accessory, designed to protect the beneficial content of human breast milk when stored or transported.
To date, the breast milk research startup has received around €3 million (£2.6m) in grants, is in the midst of closing a seed round for an undisclosed sum and is aiming to secure Series A funding next year.
“We have a really exciting few years ahead,” said Dr Sioned Jones, chemist, biophysicist, and chief operating officer (COO) of BoobyBiome.
Founded in 2019, BoobyBiome was launched within University College London (UCL) by a trio of PhD researchers interested in deepening scientific knowledge on the breast milk microbiome and its link to infant gut health and immunity.
Today, the company – now a team of six – works out of the laboratory at Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health in London, developing a database on the breast milk microbiome; building a biobank of strains found within human breast milk; and developing products that can contribute to a healthier gut microbiome in infants.
Speaking to Vitafoods Insights, Jones said: “In the next three to five years, what we want to have is two fully tested and clinically validated products on the market – the storage device and the synbiotic – and we want to make sure they are accessible to both parents and clinicians.
“Alongside that, we want to continue to expand our database and biobank, because knowledge is power and that is what's going to inform any future developments of product that expand across those first 1,000 days of life.”
Dr Lydia Mapstone, microbiologist and CEO of BoobyBiome, said that the ten-year goal is even bigger. The aim, she said, is to have a “clinical validation of disease prevention” with a study that shows providing these bacteria to babies could prevent various immune diseases linked to the infant gut microbiome, including asthma, allergies, eczema, and even type 1 diabetes.
The launch date of BoobyBiome's synbiotics supplement remains undefined, but the company will be conducting a food intervention study to understand the tolerability and safety of the product ahead of launch – an aspect not required for market entry but something the team considers essential.
Jones said: “What's really important to us is that our product is scientifically robust before it reaches the market, so if there's an additional year or two needed to make that happen, it's something we're definitely going to do.”
The bacteria strains for the first synbiotic product have already been identified and the team is now working on testing to derisk future clinical trials.
She said: “The [supplement] product we are developing is with targeted effects we would like to see in the infant gut, such as reducing inflammation and maintaining gut barrier integrity.”
Details on product format and distribution are still being explored, but the supplement will be made available for purchase on BoobyBiome's website and potentially via carefully selected partners.
By the end of this year, Mapstone said BoobyBiome will also launch its patented breast milk storage accessory, targeting parents, clinicians, and healthcare professionals.
The idea behind the storage accessory, she said, came from a “research moment” when the team was having difficulties growing bacteria in the lab from donor breast milk due to poor storage.
“The environmental conditions of [breast milk] being in a storage bottle is different from being in a mammary gland or infant gut,” she explained. “So, we decided to investigate this method of mimicking these meta-conditions within a storage bottle.”
Towards mid-2025, she said the team will publish a scientific paper detailing exactly how the accessory works to protect the beneficial content of human breast milk – including vitamins and antioxidants – adding to the startup's wider efforts to plug research gaps.
Both co-founders said there remains a significant gap in breast milk microbiome research – a critical driver for BoobyBiome as the startup grows.
Even the concept of where the breast milk microbiome comes from remains “pretty unknown” in the scientific community, according to Jones, with some theorising that it originates from the oral microbiome of the infant and others that it comes via a gut transfer from the mother.
“Our mission really, at the start, was to understand what's living in breast milk – in the breast milk microbiome – and what the functions are within this, with the ultimate mission that every baby receives these crucial microbes,” she said.
Today, the company is ramping up efforts beyond composition analysis and mapping to identify patterns in the breast milk microbiome, track “dynamic compositional changes that can occur over time” and understand how certain microbes might work in a consortium of bacterial strains.
The team, for example, is analysing nuances in the microbial composition of breast milk, looking at potential influencing factors like an infant's age, whether the child was born vaginally or via C-section, specific mother-and-baby pairings, and the post-birth diet of infant and mother, combining metadata with shotgun metagenomic sequencing of the DNA.
“We're very keen for any revenue made in the early days to be invested back into R&D because we think there is so much potential. The plan is to keep going until we can provide options for every parent,” Mapstone said.