The Unmet Need

Treatments for chronic lung infections are long, complex and highly toxic 

Non-tuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) lung diseases—particularly caused by Mycobacterium avium (MAC) and M. abscessus (MAB)—is a severe and increasingly prevalent condition with limited treatment success.

NTM lung infections affect more than 500,000 people worldwide and are rising in prevalence in all high-income countries. Patients often endure 12 to 24 months of multidrug treatments with significant toxicity, modest cure rates and high relapse. For many, treatment means prolonged hospital monitoring, severe side effects and declining quality of life.

NTM infections pose a significant cost and burden to health systems around the world because of outpatients and inpatient hospital visits, high-cost of therapy and monitoring.

These infections affect vulnerable populations, including patients with bronchiectasis, COPD, cystic fibrosis, and those who are immunocompromised, leading to substantial morbidity and high mortality. A key limitation of current treatment is the inability to eliminate bacteria that persist within host immune cells, where they evade both antibiotics and immune killing

Our Approach

Targeting the mycobacterial mechanism that makes infections chronic

NTM bacteria persist by disrupting the host immune system’s ability to clear intracellular infection. TaBriX targets the “immune-evasion” mechanism that allows the bacteria to survive inside immune cells and resist antibiotics.

Our approach focuses on selectively disabling bacterial immune-evasion mechanisms, allowing host immune cells to recover their intrinsic capacity to eliminate intracellular pathogens. This represents a shift from prolonging antibiotic exposure to unlocking effective microbial clearance within infected immune cells.

Our lead candidate, TBX-4881 is an oral small molecule targeting the bacterial enzyme PtpB, a key secreted enzyme involved in immune evasion. PtpB disrupts the phago-lysosomal pathway, enabling mycobacteria to survive inside macrophages. TBX-4881 specifically inhibits PtpB, removing this block, thus enabling immune cells to resume intracellular killing of the pathogen to clear infection. 

Our pioneer approach is designed to work alongside standard-of-care antibiotics, enhancing overall clearance to reduce infection and pathology.

• We are not replacing antibiotics. We are enabling them to work better.

Clinical and System Impact

Shorter treatments. Stronger cures.

Our therapeutic approach is designed to:

• Restore immune clearance
• Shorten treatment duration
• Reduce relapse and toxicity
• Improve quality of life
• Reduce hospital burden and costs

By aligning clinical cure with economic efficiency, TaBriX aims to deliver value for patients, clinicians and health systems 

Platform Potential

A scalable immunotherapy platform

The immune-evasion targets studied by TaBriX are conserved across multiple bacterial and fungal pathogens in the WHO priority list that cause chronic and difficult-to-treat infections

• NTM is our first clinical validation.
• Our long-term ambition is to expand into other chronic and antimicrobial resistant infections (AMR).

Current Status

TaBriX is a University of Manchester spin-out founded in 2021 

• Several compound series in preclinical development
• Pipeline development (NTM, MDR-TB, AMR bacteria)
• £1.8 million in grant funding secured 
• £400,000 pre-seed investment raised 
• EIS eligible

We are currently fund-raising to advance our lead through preclinical studies and early clinical validation.