Of all the ways to emerge from stealth mode, the one that involves acquiring an entire portfolio of PARP inhibitors from a Switzerland-based pharma ranks pretty high: welcome Nodus Oncology to the Edinburgh-based biotech ecosystem. In London, business carries on as usual with US companies acquiring British biotechs. In this case, Arcutis BioTherapeutics has acquired Ducentis BioTherapeutics for up to $400 million (tip: immunological checkpoints!). One day we will need to talk about accelerators but meanwhile, know that these have duplicated in number in the past five years. And yet, Oxford Foundry is closing and politics might have played a role. Those interested in academic spin outs, Scotland’s largest company creation programme for the university sector has unveiled the 28 academic finalists that will compete at the Converge 2022 competition. Upwards and onwards, Bessemer Venture Partners has closed $4.6 billion across two new funds. Now, friends, there is a figure larger than $4.6 billion in this week’s edition of Cambridge Biocapital, and that is the $8 billion Illumina payed to (re)acquire Grail. If nothing changes, they will need to divest and let Grail free after the European Commission blocked the acquisition. The Pharma section explains (in-a-nutshell) the Illumina/Grail/EuropeanCommission/FederalTradeCommission affair. Syncona-backed Purespring Therapeutics has appointed Alice Brown, PhD, former VP of Gene Engineering at GammaDelta Therapeutics and Exscientia has appointed Caroline Rowland as Chief People Officer (CPO). Good news for Evox Therapeutics, Biofidelity and Spirea as they all have been granted patents these week. If you are either WNT pathway connoisseurs or simply get excited with organoids, the Interesting Readings section features fascinating research this week. If organoids is not your thing and but do wonder how machine learning powers biobank-driven drug discovery, scroll in the same direction. This week, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Ma’am, requiescat in pace.

Edinburgh-based Nodus Oncology has emerged from stealth. The biotech received seed funding from Cumulus Oncology, a Scottish biotech creation studio, and the Lead Discovery Centre (LDC) in Dortmund (Germany). Founding details have not been disclosed. The aim is to develop small molecules inhibiting targets within the novel DNA damage response (DDR) pathways. LDC will act as the drug discovery arm of Nodus and participate in the development of all pipeline assets. Dr Ian Waddell, PhD has been appointed Chief Executive Officer. Luis Toledo, PhD, the scientific founder, has been appointed advisor and Chief Scientific Officer of Cumulus Oncology. In addition to the launching, Nodus Oncology has announced the acquisition of Basilea Pharmaceutica’s (SIX: BSLN) novel poly(ADP-ribose) glycohydrolase (PARG) inhibitor discovery programme. PARG is a key enzyme involved in the repair of damaged DNA and it is essential for tumour cells to grow. The acquisition (Asset Purchase Agreement, APA) secures worldwide development and commercialisation rights over the assets, currently at discovery stage. The APA grants Basilea an upfront and near-term research milestone payment of £896,080 and is eligible for further payments tight to milestones.

London-based Ducentis BioTherapeutics has been acquired by California-based Arcutis BioTherapeutics (NASDAQ: ARQT) for up to $400 million. Ducentis BioTherapeutics is a preclinical-stage biotech company developing novel therapies for inflammation and autoimmune diseases. LifeArc was Ducentis’ largest investor and this acquisition constitutes the first exit for LifeArc Ventures. The agreement values Ducentis at up to $400 million. This figure includes an upfront payment of $16 million, Arcutis stock valued at $14 million, and future payments tight to commercial success. Ducentis lead preclinical asset (DS-234) is an agonist of CD200R, an immune-regulatory receptor that acts as immunological checkpoint in maintaining immune tolerance. Currently DS-234 is being developed for treatment of atopic dermatitis. The acquisition fits into Arcutis portfolio as the company is currently at commercial stage, and focuses on developing immuno-dermatology therapies.

Apricity has raised €17 million Series B for its virtual fertility clinic. The funding was led by the Swiss health-tech investor MTIP and participated by consumer fund Iris Ventures. The company has set out plans to become the Europe’s leading fertility player and the proceedings of the round will be use to enable their expansion into Europe. The company was launched in 2018 to smoothen the patients experience and avoid recurrent visits to the clinic. The virtual clinic assists with every step of the fertility treatment and provides continuous, personalised support through its app. Apricity has also developed a pioneering AI algorithm that identify the most suitable fertility treatment for patients and then determine the best embryo for selection through 3D reconstruction.

London-based Hexarad has raised extended £2.2 million series A (now totalling £4.5 million) The round was led by Foresight Group with participation from angel investors and healthcare leaders such Henry Carleton and Sachin Agrawal. Hexarad provides workflow management software for radiology departments in order to reduce delays in scan results. The platform focuses on allocative efficiency to improve scan reporting times. The company was founded in 2016 by a group of NHS consultant radiologists. Currently, it is a provider for the NHS as well as private healthcare services.

University of Manchester-spinout Imperagen has secured £3.5 million seed funding led by IQ Capital and Northern Gritstone. Imperagen is led by Dr Andrew Almond, serial entrepreneur who co-founded C4X Discovery (AIM: C4XD). The proceedings of the round will be used to support the development and validation of its ultra-fast enzyme engineering platform. Their proprietary platform utilises computational design and synthetic biology powered by laboratory automation to speed up the process of developing optimised enzymes for pharmaceutical companies. Imperagen is Northern Gritstone’s first direct seed investment in a university spinout.

Transdermal Diagnostics has raised £1.1 million pre-seed round. The round was led by QUBIS Innovation Fund, including by Pioneer Group, Immetric, Bristol Private Equity Club, Science Angel Syndicate, as well as grant funding from Innovate UK. The proceedings of the round will be used to develop a needle-free blood sugar monitor. Transdermal was founded by Dr Luca Lipani (CEO), Dr Adelina Ilie (CSO) and Prof Richard Guy (Company director). The aim is to develop a wearable smart-patch for non-invasive and real-time monitoring of health biomarkers. Transdermal Diagnostics is a member of Spin Up Science Ventures accelerator program. The growth and regulatory plans have been enabled by taking part in the Pioneer LAUNCH programme and SETsquared Scale-up programme, the award of the Health Technology Regulatory and Innovation Programme and the Innovation to Commercialisation of University Research (ICURe) programme, as well as with support from the Academic Health Science Networks.

Scotland’s largest company creation programme for the university sector has unveiled the 28 academic finalists who will compete for over £300,000 of equity-free funding and start-up support in early November at the Converge 2022 competition. The projects span a broad range of sectors including sensors, chemical industry, health care and engineering. This is the full list of finalists.

The European midmarket private equity group Duke Street has agreed a £213 million deal to exit Medi-Globe, the German medical tech business, to DCC Healthcare. Medi-Globe is an international manufacturer and distributer of single-use accessories that are critical in surgical and diagnostic procedures. The company sells into over 120 countries. Duke Street invested in the business in 2016, following a two-year period of origination focussed on the medical devices sub-sector.

Investment Funds & Accelerators

Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) has closed $4.6 billion across two new funds, 12th flagship fund (BVP XII, $3.85 billion) and BVP Forge fund ($780 million). BVP focuses on early- and growth-stage venture capital investments (BVP XI fund, $2.475 billion; Century II growth fund, $825 million; early-stage focused India fund, $220 million). With the brand new BVP Forge fund, the firm is expanding its flexibility to support growth buyouts with different liquidity, capital structure and operational support requirements. In contrast, BVP XII aims to double down on seed and early-stage investments in companies spanning enterprise, deep tech, fintech, consumer, and healthcare.

Oxford Foundry, Oxford University-based startup incubator, has closed five years after launching. It follows a a decision by the university over the “sustainability” of the project. Oxford Foundry was founded by was founded by Peter Tufano, former dean of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, and raised £3.2 million at launch. The programme had reportedly supported 42 startups last year that had collectively raised £51m.

And yet… the number of UK-based startup accelerators has doubled in five years. The fastest growth has taken place in Wales and Northern Ireland, whereas Scotland has fewer in total compared to five years ago. The study has been performed by the Centre for Entrepreneurs (CfE) and concludes that only 8 incubators disclosed they had received no public funding. In addition, the report calls on existing hubs to better publicise their success to ensure funding.

Cambridge-based Phoremost has entered a multi-project drug target discovery collaboration with Roche. Under the terms of the agreement, PhoreMost will receive an upfront payment and is eligible for preclinical success-based milestones. Further financial terms are not disclosed. Phoremost will leverage its proprietary phenotypic screening platform (SITESEEKER) to identify novel targets within pathways of therapeutic interest for Roche.

Oxford-based Evox Therapeutics has been granted four new patents (US11298319, EP3700566, EP3569254, and JP6999601). The claims cover a method of purifying engineered exosomes via a downstream process utilising ultrafiltration and size-based separation steps; an affinity chromatography process; and two methods of loading exosomes with a wide range of pharmacological agents such as oligonucleotides and small molecules. Evox uses its proprietary DeliverEX technology to engineer exosomes to facilitate drug delivery to organs, including the brain and the central nervous system. Evox is backed by Redmile and Orbimed, among others.

Cambridge (UK) and North Carolina (US)-based Biofidelity has been granted key patents in US, Europe and China. The newly issued patents protect both the enzymatic processes that underpin the company’s ASPYRE technology and the 4-step methodology through which the technology is utilised. ASPYRE simplifies and accelerates the detection of actionable biomarkers. These patents protect the method to test for the presence of a large number of genomic markers, including various cancer, infectious diseases, and transplant organ rejection. The ASPYRE technology is currently protected by 22 granted patents, including two US patents, US10961569 and US11332780, Chinese patent CN112424379, and patents in key European countries, including the UK, France and Germany.

Cyted.ai has performed the 10,000 NHS tests for early detection of oesophageal cancer. The early cancer test allows patients to swallow a capsule which collects cells from the oesophagus in a process that takes just ten minutes and can be delivered in the community. The test is currently used in more than 50 hospitals in England and Scotland. The NHS has provided £500,000 of funding to pilot testing in community care across North-West England.

Cambridge-based Spirea has been granted a UK patent (GB2594753). The claims provide broad coverage to the company’s antibody-drug conjugates linker technology. Spirea’s technology enables more cytotoxic drug to be attached to the targeting antibody resulting eventually in the delivery of more drug payload to the target cancer cell.

Exscientia PLC (Nasdaq: EXAI) has appointed Caroline Rowland as Chief People Officer (CPO). This newly created role will help to build on the company’s existing success as well as attracting new talent and create better employee experiences. Rowland recently served as Vice President of Talent at Arm, where she held multiple senior roles. Prior to that, Rowland led the executive performance strategy and talent management at Diageo and Deloitte. Currently she serves as Board Member at the Cambridge Network. https://www.baileyfisher.com/case-studies/people

After 3 years as Chair at the Cambridge Angels group, Simon Thorpe is to stand down. Simon will be succeeded by Pam Garside. Cambridge Angels is a group of more than 60 high-net investors that mentor and take part in the fundraising process for startups located in Cambridge, London, Oxford and throughout the UK.

Charco Neurotech has been awarded the MedTech Startup of the Year at the UK Enterprise Awards 2022. The company was founded in 2019 by Lucy Jung and Floyd Pierres to create a non-invasive wearable device (CUE1) that alleviates certain Parkinson symptoms such as stiffness and slowness of movement. Charco has patented technology and CUE1 has been now delivered to around 75 people.

Syncona-backed Purespring Therapeutics has appointed Alice Brown, PhD as Chief Scientific Officer. Dr Brown joins from GammaDelta Therapeutics where she was Vice President of Research and Vice President of Gene Engineering. She briefly joined the Cell Therapy Innovation Department at Takeda upon GammaDelta acquisition. Before GammaDelta, she was Director of Biology at PsiOxus Therapeutics. Dr Brown will work to advance Purespring’s pipeline of AAV gene therapies for chronic kidney diseases.

IQ Capital has been shortlisted for two GP Bullhound Investor Allstars 2022categories: Kerry Baldwin (co-founder and Managing Partner at IQ Capital) as Investor of the Year and IQ Capital as Seed Fund of the Year. Final results will be announced on October, 6.

Sofinnova-backed Synthace has appointed Dr Donald Deieso as Chair of the Board. Currently, Dr Deieso serves on the boards of WCG Clinical, and Inspire. He is also a member of the Novo Holdings Advisory Group. Dr Deieso succeeds Bob Wiederhold who served as Board Chair since 2018.

Ivy Farms has unveiled what claims to be the Europe’s largest cultivated meat pilot plant in Oxford. Ivy Farm grows pork stem cells in large fermentation tanks. The new 18,000 sq ft facility is fitted with a pilot manufacturing plant and hosts a terminal 600L bioreactor that will enable the production of over 2.8 tonnes of cultivated meat per year.

The Illumina/Grail saga in a nutshell. Grail was span out of Illumina in 2015. In 2017, Illumina reduced its ownership of Grail to below 20%. However, when Grail announced their initial public offering, Illumina raised its hand and offered to purchase the remaining outstanding shares, in other words, to reacquire Grail. Regulators did not like that move. In march 2021, the European Commission adopted the so-called Article 22 to account for companies that “may develop into playing a significant competitive role on the market(s) at stake”, thus allowing EU members to file for complains. At this stage, we are in July 2021 and the European Commission has open an investigation to determine whether its initial anti-trust concerns were justified. The European Commission warned Illumina to keep Grail completely separated until the investigation was final. Regardless, Illumina chose to proceed with Grail acquisition and the operation closed in August 2021 for $8 billion. In March 2021, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also filled a complain against Illumina arguing for unfair competitive advantage as a good proportion of every liquid biopsy companies use Illumina sequencing equipment. This week, a US administrative court ruled out against the FTC, giving Illumina a seal of approval. However, on Tuesday, the European Commission finally blocked the acquisition in a 600-pages veto. Now, if nothing else changes, Illumina will have to divest the $8 billion from Grail. According to the Financial Times, it is extraordinarily rare for the EU to block a merger or acquisition as only 5% of scrutinised deals are currently being rejected.

Avacta Life Science (AIM: AVCT) has received Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) from the US FDA for its drug AVA600. AVA600 is the company’s lead drug candidate from its pre|CISION platform for treatment of soft tissue sarcoma. AVA6000 is a form of the generic chemotherapy doxorubicin that has been modified using the pre|CISION technology so that it is activated predominantly in the tumour with the aim of sparing healthy tissue from exposure and improving the safety, tolerability and efficacy of the drug. The FDA can grant ODD based on a review of preclinical data from investigational treatments for rare diseases, such as soft tissue sarcoma, which are defined as conditions affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US.

London-based Silence Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SLN) has announced FDA Fast Track Designation for SLN124, an investigational siRNA therapy for the treatment of polycythemia vera. SLN124 is designed to address a range of haematological diseases by targeting TMPRSS6 to increase endogenous hepcidin, the body’s master regulator of iron balance and distribution. SLN124 showed proof of mechanism and good tolerability in a healthy volunteer study completed last year. SLN124 is undergoing phase 1 trials in patients with thalassemia as the drug candidate has been granted ODD for PV, thalassemia, myelodysplastic syndrome and rare paediatric disease designation for thalassemia. Silence Therapeutics is developing siRNA-based medicines to inhibit the expression of specific target genes thought to play a role in the pathology of diseases with significant unmet need.

Good comment in Nature Biotechnology on how machine learning powers biobank-driven drug discovery, featuring Celsius Therapeutics, BenevolentAI, Relation Therapeutics, Alchemab, and many other small and big players (and how they interact with each other).

A team of researchers led by Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz from the University of Cambridge have created a model embryo from mouse stem cells that form a brain, beating heart, and the foundations of all the other organs of the body.

More content for those of you curious about organoids or WNT pathway enthusiasts — an interview with Hans Clevers, Director & Professor of Molecular Genetics at the Hubrecht Institute, Developmental Biology and Stem Cell Researchin the Netherlands. Clevers was the first researcher to demonstrate the existence of long-lived stem cells in many tissues, including the intestine, hair follicle, and stomach.

Careers in Discovery has talked to Victoria Marsh Durban, Chief Executive Officer at Cellesce, a Cardiff-based biotech pioneering the industrialisation of organoids. Exciting life trip from academia to running a business without any formal training.

The Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC) is celebrating its 60th anniversary this autumn and the the Centre for Economics and Business Research has published a report on the impact of CBC into the economy. According to the report, CBC supported an aggregate economic footprint of £2.2 billion worth of Gross Value Added to the UK economy. In 2021, they report a collaborative operating income of £1.9 billion and £291 million in contributions to to the Exchequer via tax revenues. More findings here.

Friends, life in the lab can get really bleak by itself. If you have results whose communication involves photography, do not miss this article by Emily Petersen(senior photo editor for Science) covering essential recommendations on how not shooting yourself in the foot (metaphorically and literally).