Firm gets EU funding to find new ways to battle bacteria

A Galway company is among four Irish Enterprises to receive funding in the latest round of Horizon 2020 SME Instrument for Phase 1 from the European Commission.

Westway Health joins a further 141 small or medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that will receive €50,000 in funding and up to three days of business coaching.

The company will also have the opportunity to be considered for further financial support from the Commission worth €2.5 million.

Professor Vincent O’Flaherty

Westway Health is a start-up company from NUI Galway who have developed a suite of non-antibiotic technologies effective at killing all microorganisms.

The idea largely stems from almost ten years of research from the laboratory of Professor Vincent O’Flaherty, Head of Microbiology at the School of Natural Sciences at NUI Galway.

CEO of Westway Health, Dr. Ruairi Fiel believes there is an urgent need for novel, effective treatments against bacteria as the lack of effectiveness of antibiotics and the growing number of bacteria becoming resistant such as MRSA is a major concern.

“The WHO has described this as an ‘increasingly serious threat to global public health’.

“These technologies have a range of applications in human health, animal health and for environmental sterilisation, in eliminating and eradicating microorganisms, such as bacteria, yeast and fungi,” said Dr.Friel.

The lead product in the pipeline of Westway Health’s technologies is for the treatment of bovine mastitis through PanaMast LC that boasts zero milk discard during or after the period of treatment, which is a short 2-3 days.

Bovine mastitis is a potentially fatal mammary gland infection, causing an inflammatory reaction of the udder tissue.

Milk-secreting tissue and various ducts throughout the mammary gland are damaged due to toxins released by the bacteria.

The common disease in cattle can cause lower protein levels and calcium in milk produced by the animals suffering from the disease.

Furthermore, milk from cows being treated by antibiotics cannot be marketable until drug residues have left the cow’s system.

The disease costs the US dairy industry $1.7 to $2 billion annually.

According to Professor Vincent O’Flaherty, current mastitis treatments involve unsatisfactory antibiotics that are not always effective as bacteria can become resistant to them.

“To avoid antibiotics entering the human food chain, the milk must be discarded during treatment and cannot be sold or consumed for a number of days afterwards,” he said.

“Our technology avoids these problems, allowing for a potentially effective zero withdrawal treatment that is, allowing farmers to treat mastitis and sell their milk throughout product- becoming the world’s first such product.”