Manufacturing & Supply Chain

Tucana Health Ltd, a spin-out from the APC in University College Cork, is to build a new research team in Cork.

Tucana was founded by Professors Fergus Shanahan and Paul O’Toole. The spin out was set up to investigate the composition of bacterial communities in the gut, and to use this information to aid the diagnosis and treatment of disease.

Tucana Health Ltd. has just been acquired by 4D pharma plc, a pharmaceutical company focusing on the development of live biotherapeutics, a novel and emerging class of drugs.  4D pharma’s investment will be used to build further research capability in Tucana Health, and to hire key research staff.

Professor Paul O’Toole, Principal Investigator in the  APC Microbiome Institute and co-founder of Tucana Health said that “Tucana Health is an outstanding example of how sustained public investment in fundamental research leads to economic and societal impacts over the medium to long term, creating jobs for a growing team of skilled researchers over the next couple of years” said Professor Fergus Shanahan, Director, APC Microbiome Institute and co-founder of Tucana Health. “We are keen to expand our research team with motivated scientists, and we are currently recruiting ambitious researchers with molecular biology and bioinformatics skills who would like to be part of this exciting new venture.”