Terms of Service

1. Introduction

These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Gutceutics website at gutceutics.bio, the Gutceutics patient portal, the Gutceutics clinician portal, and the Gutceutics testing, reporting and action-plan services (together, the "Services").

The Services are provided by Gutceutics, a subsidiary of JMX Medical Pty Ltd (ABN 95 678 672 565), Registered address to be confirmed, Australia ("Gutceutics", "we", "us", "our").

By accessing our website, creating an account, or ordering a test, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

These Terms should be read together with our Privacy Policy, which forms part of them.

2. Important: what Gutceutics is and is not

Please read this section carefully. It is the most important part of these Terms.

2.1 A wellness service, not a diagnostic service

Gutceutics provides wellness and health optimisation testing based on gut microbiome analysis. Our reports, scores and recommendations are intended for general health awareness and lifestyle guidance only.

The Services are not:

• a diagnostic test or diagnostic service;
• a medical device, or a test intended to diagnose, cure, treat, mitigate or prevent any disease;
• medical advice, or the practice of medicine;
• a substitute for professional clinical evaluation, diagnosis or treatment; or
• an emergency or urgent-care service.

No practitioner–patient relationship is created between you and Gutceutics by ordering a test or receiving a report. Where you consult a nutritionist, pharmacist or clinician through our partner network, any professional relationship is with that practitioner, not with Gutceutics.

2.2 Risk signal scores are not diagnoses

Our reports may include model-derived signal scores relating to type 2 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and fatty liver.

These scores reflect microbiome pattern associations observed in research populations. They are statistical signals, not clinical findings. They do not diagnose, predict, confirm or exclude any medical condition.

A low or normal score is not reassurance that you do not have a condition. An elevated score is not evidence that you do. If you have symptoms or health concerns — including symptoms such as rectal bleeding, unexplained weight loss, persistent change in bowel habit, or severe or persistent abdominal pain — see a doctor promptly, regardless of anything in your Gutceutics report.

2.3 Do not change treatment based on your report

Never disregard professional medical advice, delay seeking it, or start, stop or alter any prescribed medication or treatment because of anything in a Gutceutics report or plan. Discuss any proposed change with your treating practitioner first.

If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 000 (Australia) or attend your nearest emergency department.

2.4 Scientific limitations

Microbiome science is an active and evolving field. You acknowledge that:

• the microbiome is dynamic and changes with diet, medication, illness, travel, stress and time — a result is a snapshot, not a fixed characteristic;
• recent antibiotic, probiotic, proton pump inhibitor or laxative use can materially alter results;
• reference ranges are derived from cohort data and may not reflect what is optimal for any individual;
• associations reported in research literature are not necessarily causal; and
• our models, reference cohorts and interpretations may be updated over time, and a later test may be interpreted differently from an earlier one.

3. Eligibility

To use the Services you must:

• be at least 18 years of age, or have a parent or legal guardian who consents to and manages the account on your behalf;
• have an Australian delivery address (we do not currently ship internationally);
• have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract; and
• provide accurate and complete information.

Testing on behalf of another adult requires that person's informed consent. You warrant that you have obtained it.

4. Accounts

4.1 Your account

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity under your account. Notify us immediately at hello@gutceutics.bio if you suspect unauthorised access.

You must not share your account, transfer it, or allow another person to use it.

4.2 Clinician portal accounts

Clinician portal accounts are additionally subject to the following. By registering, you represent and warrant that:

• you hold current, unrestricted registration with AHPRA or an equivalent recognised professional body, and will notify us promptly if that status changes;
• you will access patient data only where you have a legitimate treating relationship and the patient's consent;
• you will exercise your own independent clinical judgement and will not rely on Gutceutics data as the sole basis for any diagnosis or treatment decision;
• you will comply with all applicable professional, privacy and record-keeping obligations, including in relation to any patient data you download or store; and
• you will not share portal credentials, or provide access to any person not authorised by us.

We may suspend or revoke clinician access at our discretion where these obligations are not met.

5. Ordering, pricing and payment

5.1 Products

Current plans and prices are displayed on our website. As at the date of these Terms:

• Essentials — $599 AUD, one-time
• Ultra — $799 AUD, one-time
• Practitioner — custom volume pricing

5.2 Pricing

All prices are in Australian dollars and include GST where applicable. We may change prices at any time; the price applying to your order is the price displayed at the time you place it.

We take care with pricing but errors occur. If a product is listed at an incorrect price, we may cancel the order and refund you in full rather than supply at the incorrect price.

5.3 Payment

Payment is required in full at the time of order and is processed by a third-party payment provider. We do not store your full card details. Your order is accepted only when we confirm it and dispatch your kit.

5.4 What is included

Each plan includes the components listed on our website at the time of purchase. Consultations, compounded formulations and nutrition protocols included in a plan must be redeemed within 12 months of purchase unless we agree otherwise in writing. Compounded formulations are supplied and priced as described at the time of purchase; ongoing or repeat supply is a separate arrangement with the pharmacy.

5.5 Practitioner accounts

Volume pricing, co-branded reporting and account terms for practitioners are set out in a separate practitioner agreement, which prevails over these Terms to the extent of any inconsistency.

6. Kits, samples and turnaround

6.1 Delivery

We aim to dispatch kits to arrive within 3 business days anywhere in Australia. Delivery timeframes are estimates and depend on third-party carriers.

6.2 Your responsibilities

You must:

• register and activate your kit before collecting your sample;
• follow the collection instructions supplied with the kit exactly;
• complete the health questionnaire accurately and completely — inaccurate information may materially affect the interpretation of your result;
• collect and return your sample within the timeframes stated in the kit instructions; and
• post the sample using the supplied pre-paid return packaging.

6.3 Sample rejection and re-collection

A sample may be unsuitable for analysis due to insufficient volume, degradation, transit delay, temperature exposure, damaged packaging, contamination or failure to meet laboratory QC thresholds.

• Where a sample fails for reasons within our or the laboratory's control, we will supply a replacement kit at no charge.
• Where a sample fails due to incorrect collection, late return or handling by you, we will supply one replacement kit at no charge as a courtesy; further replacements may incur a fee.

6.4 Turnaround

Results are typically available in 2–3 weeks from receipt of your sample at the laboratory (Ultra plans are prioritised at approximately 2 weeks). These are estimates, not guarantees. Laboratory scheduling, QC re-runs, sample quality and courier delays can extend turnaround, and we are not liable for delay.

6.5 Sample ownership and destruction

You retain the right to determine how your sample is used. Samples are destroyed after analysis and QC release, typically within 90 days, unless you request banking. Samples are not returned.

7. Your action team and third-party partners

A defining feature of Gutceutics is that your result is accompanied by practitioner support. You acknowledge that these practitioners and partners — including Gut Brain Science, Synergy Compounding Pharmacy, Chief Nutrition and members of our clinician network — are independent third parties, not employees or agents of Gutceutics.

Accordingly:

• advice, consultations, formulations, products and services provided by them are provided by them, under their own terms, professional obligations, registrations and insurance;
• Gutceutics does not control, supervise or take responsibility for their clinical or professional judgement;
• any compounded medicine is supplied by a licensed compounding pharmacy in accordance with applicable pharmacy and TGA requirements, and is subject to that pharmacy's assessment of suitability; and
• we facilitate the connection and the flow of your results (with your consent), but the professional relationship is between you and them.

If you have a concern about a partner practitioner, we want to know — email hello@gutceutics.bio — but any professional complaint may also be directed to the relevant registration body.

8. Acceptable use

You must not:

• use the Services for any unlawful purpose, or in breach of any applicable law;
• submit a sample from another person without their informed consent, or submit a sample fraudulently;
• provide false, misleading or incomplete information;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the Services, other accounts, or our systems or networks;
• probe, scan, penetration-test or otherwise test the vulnerability of our systems without our prior written consent;
• scrape, data-mine, crawl or use automated means to extract data from the Services;
• reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to derive our models, algorithms, reference data or pipeline;
• resell, sublicense or commercially exploit the Services, reports or content without our written consent;
• upload malicious code, or interfere with the operation, integrity or performance of the Services; or
• use the Services to make claims that our results are diagnostic, or to represent Gutceutics results as a medical diagnosis.

We may suspend or terminate access for breach of this section.

9. Intellectual property

9.1 Ours

All intellectual property in the Services — including the website, portals, report design and layout, analytical pipelines, reference cohorts, risk signal models, scoring methodologies, written content, graphics, and the Gutceutics name, logo and branding — is owned by or licensed to Gutceutics and is protected by Australian and international law.

You are granted a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to access and use the Services and your own reports for your personal health purposes (or, for practitioners, for the care of your patients). No other rights are granted.

9.2 Yours

You retain ownership of your personal information, your sample and your raw sequence data. You grant us a licence to use them as necessary to provide the Services and as described in our Privacy Policy.

9.3 Feedback and testimonials

If you provide feedback, suggestions or a testimonial, you grant us a perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide licence to use it without obligation to you. We will not publish a testimonial that identifies you without your consent.

10. Australian Consumer Law

Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts or modifies any guarantee, right or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law ("ACL") that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Our goods and services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the ACL. For major failures with a service, you are entitled to cancel your service contract and to a refund for the unused portion, or to compensation for its reduced value. You are also entitled to be compensated for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. If a failure does not amount to a major failure, you are entitled to have the failure rectified within a reasonable time and, if this is not done, to cancel and obtain a refund for the unused portion.

Where our liability for a breach of a non-excludable guarantee may be limited by law, our liability is limited, at our option, to resupplying the services or paying the cost of having them resupplied.

11. Refunds and cancellations

Subject at all times to section 10:

• Before dispatch — you may cancel for a full refund.
• After dispatch, kit unused — you may cancel and return the unused kit within 14 days of receipt for a refund less a reasonable handling and shipping cost.
• After sample submission — refunds are not available once your sample has been received by the laboratory and processing has commenced, because the cost has been incurred.
• Unredeemed consultations — where a plan includes consultations you have not used, and you cancel before redemption, we will refund the fair value of the unredeemed component.
• Service failure — if we fail to deliver a result for reasons within our control and cannot do so on re-collection, we will refund you in full.

Refunds are made to the original payment method, generally within 10 business days.

To request a refund, email hello@gutceutics.bio with your order number.

12. Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by law, and subject to section 10:

• the Services are provided "as is" and "as available";
• we do not warrant that the Services will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of harmful components;
• we do not warrant that any particular health outcome, symptom improvement or result will follow from using the Services;
• we make no representation as to the accuracy, completeness or currency of general health information published on our website or in our reports, which is provided for education only; and
• comparison information published on our website is based on publicly available information as at the date stated, provided in good faith for educational comparison, and may become out of date.

13. Limitation of liability

Subject to section 10 and to the maximum extent permitted by law:

1. We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive loss, or for loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill or anticipated savings, however arising.
2. We are not liable for any loss arising from: your reliance on a report as a diagnosis; any decision to seek, delay or forgo medical care; the acts, omissions or advice of any third-party practitioner or partner; inaccurate information you provided; improper sample collection; or carrier delay or loss.
3. Our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with the Services is limited to the total amount you paid to us in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

14. Indemnity

You indemnify us against any claim, loss, liability or cost (including reasonable legal costs) arising from your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Services, your submission of a sample without proper consent, or your violation of any law or the rights of a third party — except to the extent caused by our own negligence or breach.

15. Availability, changes and termination

We may modify, suspend or discontinue any part of the Services at any time. We will give reasonable notice of any change that materially affects a service you have already paid for, and where we cannot deliver it, we will refund you.

You may close your account at any time by contacting us. We may suspend or terminate your access if you breach these Terms, if we suspect fraud or misuse, or if required by law.

On termination, sections 2, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17 and 18 survive.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The current version is always available at gutceutics.bio with the effective date shown at the top.

For material changes, we will give notice by email or through the portal before they take effect. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance. If you do not accept a change, you may close your account, and we will refund any unused prepaid services.

17. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia. You and we submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales and the courts of appeal from them.

Before commencing proceedings, please contact us at hello@gutceutics.bio so we can attempt to resolve the matter. We will acknowledge within 7 days and aim to resolve within 30 days. This does not limit your right to seek urgent relief or to approach a consumer protection body.

18. General

Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any consent forms or practitioner agreement constitute the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Services.

Severability. If any provision is found unenforceable, it is severed and the remainder continues in force.

Waiver. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.

Assignment. You may not assign your rights under these Terms without our consent. We may assign ours in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets.

Force majeure. We are not liable for failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including natural disaster, pandemic, laboratory or supply-chain failure, industrial action, carrier failure or government action.

No third-party rights. Except as expressly stated, no person other than you and us has any right to enforce these Terms.

19. Contact

Gutceutics A subsidiary of JMX Medical Pty Ltd ABN 95 678 672 565 Registered address to be confirmed, Australia

All enquiries, support, complaints and privacy: hello@gutceutics.bio Web: gutceutics.bio

Gutceutics provides wellness and health optimisation testing based on gut microbiome analysis. Our reports and risk signal scores are intended for general health awareness and lifestyle guidance only. They are not diagnostic tools, do not constitute medical advice, and are not a substitute for professional clinical evaluation or treatment. If you have health concerns or symptoms, please consult a qualified healthcare professional.