Procarta Biosystems

Procarta Biosystems, founded in 2007, is a UK-based biotechnology company. Procarta is developing antibiotics in the form of oligonucleotides, which are short chains similar to DNA or RNA. Procarta delivers the drugs in nanoparticles, protecting them from degradation and facilitating their entry into bacterial cells. Once inside the bacteria, the drug blocks proteins known as transcription factors, thereby controlling gene expression in the target bacteria. Unable to express vital survival genes, the targeted bacteria quickly die, and the infection is cleared. The main advantage of Procarta's drugs over current antibiotics is that they can inhibit transcription factors within specific families or species of bacteria. This means that benign bacteria living in the gut microbiota can be spared, resulting in fewer gastrointestinal side effects compared to traditional broad-spectrum antibiotics.