New year, new life? Very oxonian edition of Cambridge Biocapital! What used to be PsiOxus Therapeutics is now Akamis Bio and renaming has come with $30 million funding from US investors. More from US funds backing UK biotechs, Oxford-based Perspectum has raised $36 million Series C from Oppenheimer Holdings and British Patient Capital. And more from Oxford: Celleron Therapeutics and Argonaut Therapeutics have merged to become IngenOx Therapeutics to develop cancer vaccines for cold tumours, that is, some of the most difficult to treat breast, ovary, prostate, pancreas, and brain cancers. Meanwhile, the Board of SourceBio International seems to have written in its New Year resolutions book “delisting from AIM”. Deepbridge Capital has appointed Ben Carter as Investment Director and Head of Life Sciences, and while we are at it, the Fund has invested in Manchester-based Carocell Bio. Not leaving the south of the north just yet, former CEO of Nottingham Technology Ventures, the University of Nottingham’s enterprise arm, Andy Naylor has been appointed as Investment Director at Northern Gritstone, which supports university spinouts and startups in the north of England. The British Business Bank will be launching a £150 million fund in Scotland during summer (pun not intended). CHARM Therapeutics has strengthened its Board, including Andrew Doré, former Director and Head of Crystallography at Sosei Heptares, Dr Andy Murray is now fully focused on Sania Therapeutics and Boehringer Ingelheim and Phoremost are doing great. Potter Clarkson has published a piece on the coming changes regarding divisional patent applications and, alas, BioNTech has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK Government! Music? My wish for the coming year: Lust for life. Let’s dive in!

Oxford-based Akamis Bio has raised £30 million funding. The investment (convertible note) was led by ARCH Venture Partners, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and Westlake Village BioPartners. Akamis Bio is a clinical-stage oncology company leveraging its proprietary Tumor-Specific Immuno-Gene Therapy (T-SIGn) platform. T-SIGn therapeutics are viral vector-based, tumor gene therapies with the ability to replicate within primary and metastatic solid tumours upon intravenous delivery. Then, once at the tumour site, they promote intratumoral expression of specific immunologically active molecules to remodel the tumor microenvironment, thus enhancing antitumoral immune responses. The company has several ongoing platform-focused collaborations (BMS, Merck, among others) and two programs in the clinic: an immuno-stimulatory tumor gene therapy that promotes intratumoral expression of a CD40 agonist monoclonal antibody; and a stromal-targeted tumor gene therapy based on a viral vector encoding a FAP-CD3 bispecific antibody, CXCL-9, CXCL-10 and interferon alpha. The funding announcement follows the company relaunch, formerly PsiOxus Therapeutics, which was founded and backed by SR One, IP Group, Hambro Perks, Lundbeckfonden, Sedgwick Yard, Mercia Asset Management, and Rosetta Capital Limited. The company appointed Howard Davis, PhD as its US-based CEO during Q3 2022 and established its US operations in Cambridge (MA) during Q4 2022.

Oxford-based Perspectum has raised $36 million Series C. The investment was led by Oppenheimer Holdings and participated by British Patient Capital through its Future Fund: Breakthrough ($10.54 million), HealthQuest Capitaland Blue Venture Fund. Perspectum is a precision health company with operations in US, UK, Portugal and Singapore. The company is developing software to improve standard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The software enables MRI to acquire multi-parametric mapping data which is then fed back to the AI-driven tool to measure organ inflammation and monitor better patients with chronic illness. Its lead product, LiverMultiScan, assesses and monitors chronic liver disease and aims to be a non-invasive alternative to biopsy. The company has ongoing collaborations with Nuance (Microsoft). The proceedings of the round will be used to expand operations in the US and advance its product pipeline for multiorgan inflammatory conditions and oncology.

Manchester-based Carocell Bio has raised £404,000 funding to support the pre-clinical testing data of the company’s lead anti-inflammatory peptide JEL3108. The investment has been led by Deepbridge Capital. So far, the Carocell Bio has secured £364,000 from Innovate UK and further £808,000 investment from Deepbridge Capital. The company is developing anti-inflammatory therapeutics, peptide inhibitors targeting a MAP kinase pathway which are delivered topically leveraging a nanoparticle-based system. its proprietary technology can be potentially used to treat severe burns and chronic skin conditions such as atopic dermatitis. Carocell Bio has achieved UK’s Health Research Authority (HRA) permission to test its lead candidate JEL3108 in human burns and reconstructive surgery tissue samples.

Nottingham-headquartered SourceBio International (AIM: SBI) is seeking approval to delist from AIM. SourceBio is offering to return up to £12.7 million to shareholders. The tender offer would allow shareholders to sell at £1.15 per share (fixed price). The operation can be funded thanks to the company’s own resources, £4 million loan from Harwood Private Equity V LP , and 4 million term loan from Barclays Bank, which may be providing additional £4 million credit facility for working capital purposes. SourceBio is a healthcare and life science service provider with a three core divisions: Healthcare Diagnostics, Genomics, and Stability Storage. The operation is being advised by BDB Pitmans and Simmons & Simmons acting for Barclays.

Oxford-based Celleron Therapeutics and Argonaut Therapeutics have completed a merger agreement to form IngenOx Therapeutics. The operation has been supported by Oxford Science Enterprise, as the two companies are originally University of Oxford spinouts. Nick LaThange, Professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Oxford,will be the Chief Executive Officer; James Noble has been appointed as Chairman of the Board. IngenOx will focus on developing precision therapeutics and vaccines to treat cold tumours and its current pipeline comprises early to late-stage clinical assets.

British Business Bank (BBB) is going to launch a £150 million investment fund to promote the growth of small and medium sized business in Scotland. The fund is expected to start operating during the summer. It will operate across three tiers: smaller loans (£25,000-£100,000), debt (£100,000-£2 million) and equity (up to £5 million). Similar funds are planned for Wales, Northern Ireland and the South West of England, along with follow-on funds for the Midlands and the North of England. British Business Bank is inviting proposals from potential fund managers to operate the new Investment Fund for Scotland.

Northern Gritstone has appointed Andy Naylor as Investment Director. Naylor joins from Nottingham Technology Ventures, where he was the Chief Executive Officer and managed the University of Nottingham’s spin-out portfolio and associated funds. He will work alongside Marion Bernard (Chief Investment Officer) to identify investment opportunities. Northern Gritstone was launched in July 2021 by the Universities of Leeds, University of Manchesterand University of Sheffield. It supports university spin-outs and start-ups in the north of England.

Deepbridge Capital has appointed Ben Carter as Investment Director, Head of Life Sciences. Previously, he was Investment Manager at the firm and in the past served as Director at ProtelHealth and Possum. Deepbridge Capital is a technology venture business with a focus upon commercialisation of emerging technologies with global reach.

London-based Turbine and Cancer Research Horizons have entered a collaboration. The partnership will leverage Simulated Cell, Turbine’s proprietary artificial intelligence to build a constantly evolving, predictive simulation of cellular signalling. The aim is to identify target patient populations. who can benefit from the Cancer Research Horizons’ lead compound (CRT’2199), a CDC7 inhibitor therapy. CDC7 plays a key role in regulating cell division in healthy cells and overexpression correlates with poor clinical prognosis in diverse cancers. So far, no CDC7 inhibitors have progressed to Phase III trials. The collaboration will seek to inhibit CDC7 in digital cancer cells representing different patient populations. Turbine raised Series A in 2022 co-led by MSD Global Health Innovation Fund and Mercia Asset Management and its internal pipeline currently focuses on overcoming resistance to DNA Damage Response inhibitors.

Cambridge-based PhoreMost has triggered a milestone payment in its multi-project target discovery collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim (financial details and clinical indication not disclosed). The partnership started in 2020 and leverages PhoreMost’s target discovery engine, SITESEEKER. Further pre-clinical, clinical and commercial milestones can be unlocked in the future as part of the program.

Cambridge-based Mission Therapeutics has completed Phase I clinical assessment for its lead candidate (MTX652). MTX652 is designed to inhibit USP30, a a specific mitochondrial-associated deubiquitylating enzyme. USP30 has been suggested as a target with therapeutic interest. Inhibiting its function can enable appropriate degradation of dysfunctional mitochondria to preserve overall mitochondrial quality and improve cellular health. The trial achieved its key points of MTX652 (safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics), both as single- and multiple-ascending doses orally administered (solution or suspension). Mission Therapeutics was founded in 2011 and has so far raised $103 million from investors such as Pfizer Venture Investments, Sofinnova Partners, Roche Venture Fund, SR One, IP Group and Rosetta Capital.

Oxford-based Orbit Discovery has entered a Master Service Agreement with US-based SanegeneBio Inc. The partnership will aim to investigate tissue-specific delivery of a range of RNA therapeutics to allow for gene interference. Under the terms of the agreement, Orbit will perform the process from candidate identification to cell-based internalisation studies; and Sanagene will have the option to further develop the candidates into a portfolio of RNA therapeutics. Orbit’s proprietary technology enables the screening of peptide libraries using a combination of DNA encoded libraries and bead-based presentation, aiming to shorten the candidate discovery times.

London-based CHARM Therapeutics has strengthened its leadership team. The company has appointed Ross Pettit as Chief Operating Officer, Sarah Skerratt as Senior Vice President, Head of Drug Discovery, Daniel Rohle as Vice President, Head of Cancer Biology, Andrew Doré as Vice President, Head of Structural Sciences, and Sergey Bartunovas Director of AI. CHARM is building 3D deep learning tools to discover and develop therapeutics, with initial focus on challenging oncological targets. The company raised £50 million Series A in 2022 led by F-Prime Capital and OrbiMed. Ross Pettit joins CHARM from H3 Biomedicine and has served in leadership roles at Beigene Pharmaceuticals, AMAG Pharmaceuticals and ARIAD Pharmaceuticals. Sarah Skerratt joins from Merck Sharp & Dohme (Head of Preclinical Sciences). Previously she held senior positions at Vertex, Convergence/Biogen and Pfizer. Daniel Rohle most recently was Vice President of Biology at Ridgeline Discovery, and previously worked at Hoffman La Roche and GSK. Andrew Doré was from Director and Head of Crystallography at Sosei Heptares UK and is a leading figure in the field of crystallography and structural biology. Sergey Bartunov joins from leading AI projects at Alphabet’s Deep Mind and was a senior member of the Moscow National Research University Higher School of Economics.

Cambridge-based Abzena has appointed Matthew Stober as Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining, Stober was CEO of CastleVax and Istari Oncology, and has held executive positions at Merck, GSK, Novartis. He contributed to $17 billion Hospira acquisition by Pfizer. In addition, Abzena has appointed Lukas Utiger (former CEO of DSM’s Pharmaceuticals), Peter Bigelow (Head of xCell Strategic Consulting, former President of Endo Pharmaceuticals), and Dennis Fenton (former Vice President of Research, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and Senior Vice President of Operations at Amgen) to the Board of Directors. Abzena is an integrated CDMO for antibody drug conjugates and other biopharmaceuticals.

Cambridge-based Boutros Bear has appointed Dr Deepak Ravindran as our Chief Medical Officer. Dr Ravindran worked as a consultant in pain medicine at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, and then became the clinical lead for specialist pain services of West Berkshire. The company is developing digital therapeutics under a B2B structure, currently focusing on chronic illness rehabilitation programmes for employees.

London-based RQ Biotechnology has appointed Anne Palser, PhD as Head of Virology. Dr Palser joins from Kymabwhere she held various senior scientist roles. Previously she worked at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and specialises in immunology and drug discovery. The company is developing therapeutics based on broad-spectrum monoclonal antibodies to provide long-lasting immunity for people at risk of severe disease from viral infections.

Cambridge-base Axol Bioscience has appointed Duncan Borthwick, PhD as Head of Marketing. Dr Borthwick joins from Oxford Nanopore Technologies (Commercial Marketing Manager, Distributor Program). Previously, he led the Sales or Instruments divisions at Solentin, Cambridge Biosciences, and Dynamic Biosensors. Axol Bioscience is developing human iPSC technology for drug discovery and research.

London-based ProtonDx has appointed Leigh Howes as Head of Sales. Howes has more than 20 years of industry experience in clinical markets. He will focus on extending the company’s distribution network across countries accepting the CE-IVD mark. ProtonDx is developing multi-pathogen, point-of-need in vitro diagnostic solutions. Its lead product, Dragonfly, can identify in a single tests SARS‑CoV‑2, influenza A and B virus, respiratory syncytial virus and human rhinovirus.

Astex Pharmaceuticals co-founder Harren Jhoti has been awarded OBE in the KIng’s New Year Honours. The company pioneered the industrial development of fragment-based drug discovery, an approach widely used nowadays in pharma industry. He was Chief Scientific Officer until November 2007 when he was appointed Chief Executive Officer. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2018, the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2016, and of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015, among other merits.

Cambridge-based constructive.bio has appointed Faye Rodgers, PhD as Lead Bioinformatician. Dr Rodgers joins from Mogrify, where she focused on cell reprogramming. Prior to that, she was Principal Bioinformatician at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. The company is leveraging research span out from Prof Jason Chin’s Lab at the MCR-LMB to develop technologies to biosynthesise new classes of enzymes, pharmaceuticals and biomaterials.

The Murray Lab at the University College London (led by Dr Andy Murray) has now closed for the best reasons. Dr Murray will now focus on London-based Sania Therapeutics, which leverages the previous research efforts to develop gene therapies for neurological disorders.

Animal Free Research UK (AFRUK) has appointed Dharaminder Singh, PhD to its Scientific Advisory Panel. Dr Singh is Principal Bioengineer at CN Bio and specialises in organ-on-a-chip and microphysiological systems. Animal Free Research UK is the a leading medical research charity funding and promoting the development of techniques to replace the use of animals in research.

Cambridge-based Cambourne has announced opening its new facilities. The company can now produce a wide range of cell culture media and perform large-scale tissue culture, offering a variety of media formulations and cells.

Pioneer Group has announced its brand new Ventures Building at Kent Science Park will officially open in February. The building features space for biotech and agritech startups, including laboratory and office space, small scale manufacturing facilities, exhibition spaces, and nursery among others.

BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the UK Government to provide with personalised mRNA-based cancer immunotherapies. These will be administered to up to 10,000 patients by 2030, either in clinical trials or as authorised treatments. The collaboration focuses on three strategic pillars: cancer immunotherapies, infectious disease vaccines, and expansion of the company’s footprint in the country. BioNTech and the UK Government plan to accelerate trial site and patient recruitment for clinical candidates of BioNTech’s pipeline for personalised mRNA cancer immunotherapies and infectious disease vaccines. The plan leverages the UK’s clinical trial network, genomics and health data assets. In addition, an R&D hub will be set in Cambridge, with the first employees starting during Q1/2023.

London-headquartered BenevolentAI (AMS: BAI) has submitted a Clinical Trial Application (CTA) to the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for its candidate BEN-8744. BEN-8744 is an orally-bioavailable small molecule design to inhibit phosphodiesterase 10 for the treatment of ulcerative colitis. PDE10 reduces intracellular levels of the signalling molecule cGMP. Restoration of cGMP levels by PDE10 inhibition is anticipated to have a direct anti-inflammatory and disease-modifying benefit. Phase I clinical trial of BEN-8744 is expected to commence during H1 2023. The aim will be to test the candidate therapeutic properties to treat moderate-to-severe cases of UC and with fewer side effects than the anti-TNF and JAK inhibitors, which constitute the current state of the art.

Manchester-based Christie NHS Foundation Trust has reported a patient first diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) is free of the disease thanks to a CAR-T therapy. The therapy has been administered as part of the ALLCAR19 trial run by the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH), UCL and AutolusTherapeutics. CLL is the most common type of leukaemia and accounts for 1% of all new cancer cases in the UK in 2016 to 2018.

Cambridge-headquartered Bicycle Therapeutics (NASDAQ:BCYC) has been granted FDA Fast Track Designation(FTD) to BT8009 monotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with previously treated locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer. BT8009 is a second-generation Bicycle Toxin Conjugate (BTC) targeting Nectin-4, a well validated tumour antigen which is highly expressed in urothelial cancer and other solid tumours, potentially a first-in-class therapeutic. Clinical programs conducted under FTD may be eligible for Accelerated Approval and Priority Review if relevant criteria are met.

GSK plc (LSE/NYSE: GSK) has entered an exclusive license agreement with Shangai-baased WuXi Biologics for up to four bi- and multi-specific T-cell-engaging (TCE) antibodies developed using WuXi's proprietary technology platforms. WuXi Biologics will provide an exclusive license to GSK for one preclinical TCE antibody and the option for additional three. WuXi will receive an upfront payment of $40 million and up to $1.46 billion in additional payments for research, development, regulatory and commercial milestones, as well as tiered royalties on net sales. WiXi is a Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing Organization (CRDMO) that is developing WuXiBodies, a bispecific antibody platform.

Great piece in the Financial Times about the groundbreaking genomics projects the UK has recently started, featuring Genomics PLC, the Newborn Genomes Programme, Genomics England, Our Future Health, UK Biobank, and a few lines on the competition between Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Illumina and PacBio.

Starting on May 1, 2023, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) will change its practice regarding divisional patent applications. Potter Clarkson has published an article on the coming changes and its implications.

Alchemab minutes! The Times writes about how a lucky few can help the rest of us and Jane Osbourn, PhD, OBE, co-founder and CSO, has talked to the BBC’s ‘What Britain does well’.

Good interview in the Cambridge Independent featuring Dr Katherine Chapman, the new Director of Entrepreneurship at Babraham Research Campus and former deputy Director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute.

The UK Government seems to be signalling that biotechs will not be affected by the new R&D tax policy. BioCentury ‘This Week’ podcast discusses this, among other topics.